EVENTS

The difference between us and them

Liberals and conservatives…let’s first consider what we agree on. Rape is bad, mmm-k? It should be stopped, it would be an uncompromised good if the rates declined. We’re on the same wavelength there.

But now we turn to how to fix the problem, and look what happens. The liberal’s eye focuses on the perpetrator, and they suggest we ought to educate them and modify the culture that enables rape to persist. The conservative focuses on the women, and regards the liberal as crazy for not thinking that the victims need to be fixed.

Here’s a beautiful example: Zerlina Maxwell meets Sean Hannity.

And then read how conservative media responded. Read the comments, or go to the youtube video and read the comments there (no, on second thought, don’t.) They all think Maxwell is moronic, insane, stupid, ridiculous.

I think she’s right.

As is typical, the conservatives have this unimaginative, short-sighted view of what it means to tell someone rape is wrong. They’re all imagining a woman confronted by an attacker who then solemnly tells them that they’re committing an illegal act, and expecting them to simply stop. But that’s not what she’s talking about at all.

We live in a culture where boys grow up to be privileged, entitled little shits who think women are pleasure objects for their benefit. Let’s start there and change that. Let’s say that frat boy antics are not OK. Let’s tell media to wake up and notice that women are autonomous human beings, not convenient plot points and MacGuffins. Let’s wake up and realize that valuing women only for the size of their breasts and the youthfulness of their skin is dehumanizing. She’s talking about taking on the difficult task of changing cultural attitudes.

And perhaps we could also have a little more respect for men, too. Most men are as capable of empathy as most women; if we stopped enabling the promotion of facile juvenile behavior as manly, maybe we’d see more responsibility from would-be rapists than someone like Sean Hannity proposing that women need guns to keep him from assaulting them. That’s a surrender of responsibility. That’s a declaration that men are too selfish and stupid to maintain civilized social behavior without the threat of gunfire to keep them in check.

Seriously, Hannity and you other gun-worshippers. Stop belittling my sex so much.

Related

Comments

Damn straight…for a bunch of people who pretend that evolution never happened, they act as if they’ve not quite socially evolved themselves. I’d like to think that this is some leftover from are pre-sentient days. Mind you, I’m no biologist, and I also can’t spell “sentient”.

As for the culture of rape? Even a comedy website has our culture pegged.

As is typical, the conservatives have this unimaginative, short-sighted view of what it means to tell someone rape is wrong. They’re all imagining a woman confronted by an attacker who then solemnly tells them that they’re committing an illegal act, and expecting them to simply stop. But that’s not what she’s talking about at all.

They know what the point is, they “misunderstand” on purpose so they don’t have to address the issue. Hannity is not an idiot, he’s an asshole.

They’re all imagining a woman confronted by an attacker who then solemnly tells them that they’re committing an illegal act, and expecting them to simply stop.

That’s not what I heard from Hannity. He was ridiculing the idea of telling a rapist he’s doing wrong. I think he’s saying the woman should just shoot the rapist and be done with it, no need to teach the menz to not rape, just shoot ’em instead. Everything is a justification to arm everyone.

Oh puhlease. These are the same idiots that are trying to define rape for us. They want to tell us what is “legitimate” rape and what isn’t and then force a rape victim to have a baby if she becomes pregnant from said assault. To pile on top of this shitty turd of nonsense, the rapist can get custody and/or visitation rights of the child of that forced birth.

It should be noted that there is at least some evidence that focusing on the perpetrator works. The Edmonton campaign seems to be getting results. I’m unaware of any evidence other than perhaps anecdote that focusing on the victims does anything to decrease the rate of sexual violence.

I can’t help but remember that it really wasn’t all that long ago that the objectification of women was the norm. Look at the ads from the 40s and 50s. I even remember films in the 70s that were very overt about women just being there for the guys (it’s still largely there, but not nearly as overt as the past). My first career job in the early 90s included a project manager that treated the secretary as nothing more than an object.

This is all recent enough that the older generations (50s and older in general) have been deeply immersed in an environment where women were supposed to be there for the men’s service and pleasure. The key point is to continue to expose the conservative lies for what they are so that we stop raising generations of the idiots…

Exactomundo! Hannity is talking about “rape, rape”, you know “real rape”. You know the guy with the stocking mask jumping out of the alley way., or crawling in through your bedroom window at 2AM. The rape that liberals talk about is just “misunderstandings” not real rape. That’s why Hannity ignored the lady, poor thing… she doesn’t understand what rape is. I’m sure if they had more time before they had to cut to commercial that he could explain it to the little black woman. After all the nice white lady understood.

Proof that the liberal approach is the right one — as it so very, very often is — can be found in the success of Edmonton’s Don’t Be That Guy campaign, which aimed to educate men about what is and is not rape and is credited for a 10% decrease in rape in that city.

Am I the only one who, reading that article, feels more like that author is describing clichés about men (in fact, mostly the kinds of clichés used elsewhere to make excuses for men who can’t control themselves), rather than actual male experience?
Like, he phrases it like he actually feels that way all the time, and like feeling that way is the norm, but I’m a guy, and most of what he describes is completely alien to me.
I was as sexist and sexually frustrated as any 15 year-old boy, but I’ve never felt the way he describes. Certainly not consistently. I’ve never fantasised about boobs at a funeral.

Am I some kind of freak, or is the author just especially horny/has internalised all these preconceptions especially thoroughly, and is projecting?

Hannity also used the meme that pisses me off most about conservatives: “If it doesn’t solve 100% of the problem, then it isn’t worth doing.” Since nothing we can do can totally solve the problem we should do nothing. BS masquerading as reason.

I love (ok, I mean hate) how whenever these “women should carry guns to prevent rape” arguments come up, the proponents of it seem to “forget” that most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows. The notion that a woman (or anyone) is going to shoot hir partner/relative/friend without hesitation if xe fears xe is going to be raped is kind of ludicrous. Yes, it might work on the “stocking-cap-in-the-alley” type rape, but these more intimate forms of sexual assault involve much too much emotional and psychological manipulation (most of the time) to be solved just by waving a pistol around.

My best friend was killed in the bathroom of vacation bungalow on an island in Thailand by a man who had stalked her and was attempting to rape her. She had gone to take a shower. Is Hannity suggesting that all women should wear holsters with a gun at all times, even when bathing? Why is it women’s responsibility to ‘avoid’ or stop rape? Rape isn’t like inclement weather or a virus you can protect yourself from by dressing properly or washing your hands. Even the way we talk about ‘rape’ as a noun rather than a verb is infuriating in the way it makes the act sound like an experience without an agent, like a force of nature.

It’s not women’s responsibility to avoid rape – it’s men’s responsibility to avoid raping. So let’s not talk about rape as a monolithic thing that ‘happens to’ women. Let’s talk about raping only as a verb, so we can focus on who is doing the raping. (Hmmmm…but then we’d have to contend with the fact that most men who rape are not masked ‘criminals’ or psychopaths, but ordinary men we know: our fathers, brothers, sons and uncles, neighbours and friends. It’s so much easier just to imagine that all sexual assaults are perpetrated by the same one guy who has no identity other than ‘criminal’, who’s really just an inhuman monster, not so much a man who makes the choice to rape but rather the agent-less, sole perpetrator of this monolithic thing called rape.)

imagine that all sexual assaults are perpetrated by the same one guy who has no identity other than ‘criminal’, who’s really just an inhuman monster, not so much a man who makes the choice to rape but rather the agent-less, sole perpetrator of this monolithic thing called rape.)

but it’s just what men do, they don’t think about it at all, they just do it! You can’t teach the tide to not come in, it does it regardless of what you think. [/Hannity]

Why is it so often that with rape it is the victim who must change her behavior and / or dress. I note that they don’t say that to avoid being robbed, don’t dress in expensive suits don’t carry money around, don’t drive expensive cars or live in large houses. After all doesn’t that sort of behavior and dress attract robbers! (snark, sarcasm)

It is really only with certain crimes, isn’t it? The consensus opinion on most other crimes is that the guilty party shouldn’t do it. When we talk about drunk driving, we advocate that drinkers have a designated driver or take a cab. We don’t advocate that other drivers wear NASCAR-style protective gear and cover their cars in armor to minimize the injuries when a drunk driver hits them.

I get the “women should get guns” idea, I’ve advocated it myself. It is just wrong and puts the focus in the wrong place.

when these types of stories rare or none existent and not typical will we be at least partway civilized until then do what ever you need to do to be safe.
I’m sorry I have not watched the accompanying video I do not like being provoked this early in the day
mr H is (!) and (!!) on purpose
he is the kind of guy who likes to insight the mob but not actually do anything.
uncle frogy

The idiot is just toeing the western world party line of the last 2000 plus years (thanks Abrahamic religions!) and more recently, the Victorian era and the 1950s, that women are just lustful, evil temptresses that cause men to lose control.If you challenge that type of thinking, you’re challenging that whole history, paradigm & religions. I think that’s why there is such a pushback.

I know that there is a problem in the eastern world with misogynistic views also, but I can’t help but wonder is that is a western import of the last 400 to 500 years of the colonial era. I know that the were some very powerful women in Asia in the past, but don’t know the history well enough to if women were second class or not, pre-European contact.

For those that believe that rape is brought on by the way women present themselves, check this out.

The first three stories are good for breaking down common ideas about rape. The inclusion of the cat story is just…confusing and kind of muddies any real conversation the other stories could inspire, though. No, the cat couldn’t meaningfully consent to licking those women’s genitals. It also can’t meaningfully consent to being picked up and having its belly rubbed, being wrapped up in a towel and having pills forced down its throat, being locked into a little box so it can be driven across the continent, or being euthanized.

And discussing how we treat animals (and how this leads to abuse) is good, but separate from a discussion about rape.

It’s so much easier just to imagine that all sexual assaults are perpetrated by the same one guy who has no identity other than ‘criminal’, who’s really just an inhuman monster, not so much a man who makes the choice to rape but rather the agent-less, sole perpetrator of this monolithic thing called rape.

In an act of sever early morning masochism I read the comments over at Glenn Beck’s Blazing Saddles site. It’s amazing how every single comment without exception uses exactly this shortcut, and how often the boogey man in their heads has the word “black” somewhere in the descritption. No racism there at all though, no sir!!

Something that both Zerlina and Sean said here really jumped out at me all of a sudden – although they are by no means the first to say it – and caused me to think a thought that I am worried I am not going to be able to articulate well enough without it coming across as inflammatory or in poor taste. But here goes:

Both of them talked about some people “being rapists”, as though being “a rapist” is an essential quality of certain human beings, rather than being the result of a specific act that they perpetrate (and also indirectly the result of certain elements of our cultural milieu). I am reminded of the fact that we avoid talking about people with autism as “autistics”, and instead say “people with autism” in order to avoid treating their autism as an essential element of their entire identity. I’m also reminded of how Ray Comfort likes to say that if you have ever told a lie – at any point in your life – then you are “a liar”.

Of course, there are certain actions that you can undertake which are so grave that it defines you until the day you die: someone who has raped will forever be a rapist; someone who has murdered will forever be a murderer. However, when talking in the abstract sense about there being “rapists out there” – like the participants on the panel are doing – it very much undermines Zerlina’s point about educating men out of a mindset which causes them to misunderstand the meaning of the word “no”, if you talk about being a rapist as though it were just a thing that certain people are, rather than an act that they perpetrate from their own free will. No one is born a rapist; rape is an act that one person does to another person – they didn’t need to do it, and if they had a scintilla of morality, they wouldn’t do it.

I believe that if we educate enough men to understand that women are not “for them” as objects of pleasure, or that their bogus sense of “masculinity” is not defined by conquests etc, then instances of non-censual sex will fall – although the pessimistic part of me knows that it will never reach zero; Zerlina is correct in what she says. But talking about people “being rapists” gives the impression that education, consciousness raising, progressive values – whatever you want to call it – are useless. If it were really true that certain people just “are rapists”, then I would be inclined to agree with Sean Hannity (the horror!), that all women should be armed to defend themselves against “the rapists”. However I agree with Zerlina: a large portion of rape is the result of an elevated sense of entitlement, privilege and shitbaggery that some men have with regards to the opposite sex; and these are things that men can be argued out of through education.

So yeah, if you agree with me: cool. If you disagree and think I just don’t get it, then have at me – it’s important that I learn other perspectives on this.

It’s almost impossible to have any meaningful conversation about this stuff with people who subscribe to that sort of magical notion of “criminals” as some kind of supernatural force. One that can only be repelled by the aura of Holy Reli…erm…I mean Guns.
There’s Evil in the world, people. Evil!

I am reminded of the fact that we avoid talking about people with autism as “autistics”, and instead say “people with autism” in order to avoid treating their autism as an essential element of their entire identity.

Yes, we don’t talk about a person as an autistic, but we do say that a person is autistic, that they have autism. My niece and nephew are both autistic and I don’t refer to them individually as ‘a kid with autism’, because it’s not an adjunct feature of who they are – their autism isn’t the only essential element of their identity, but it absolutely is an essential element of who they are and how they experience the world. But there is certainly nothing wrong with using ‘person with autism’ language, and what really matters are your actions: awareness and support and kindness.

Yes, women should protect themselves with guns. And when they do, we will cheer them on. Like we did with Marissa Alexander. What do you mean she got 20 years in prison for firing a shot into a wall while her abuser walked away scot free?

The UK ad loopyj posted is one of a series (correction: I’ve seen two, so I’m really just guessing they’re part of a campaign and there could be one or two more around or in the pipeline). I am sorry to say that I had not stopped to think how triggering they could be (which makes me one of the lucky ones) but I am so glad to see that kind of advertising being targeted at young men.

When I learned about the “Don’t be that guy” adverts from Edmonton I was so excited about how good they are I emailed the NUS and said they should be in every university in the country. Didn’t get an answer, but I still hope somebody at least read it …

Considering who the target of the ad is, and the social structures it’s trying to change, yeah, it probably does need to be that strong. You can’t change the thinking of people who are in denial of the problem unless you make the point unequivocally so they can’t ignore it.

Which means yeah, it’s going to be extra gruesome for those of us not equipped with anti-reality goggles. :-/ Should have a trigger warning.

Frog, I don’t see why a man raping a woman needs to be seen in such detail. We get the idea when he refuses to listen to her. I’m not a sexual abuse survivor, but I have panic disorder and as a woman seeing that set me into a full panic attack. I had to take an extra dose of my medication after watching it. You’re doing something wrong if that’s the reaction you are getting from women, even ones who haven’t been sexually assaulted. I doubt many men get the same reaction from that PSA.

I suspect that although many conservatives *say* they think rape is bad, the reality is that getting to define “real” rape and “worthy” victims, and keeping the onus and spotlight on the victim is quite an effective way to control women (and men) and maintain privilege. So in practice they don’t really think rape is a bad thing, even if they don’t admit that to themselves.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve experienced exactly the situation in that video, which is why it was triggering for me, and I still think it’s important for people to see it. It’s uncomfortable as all fuck for me, but it gets the point across in a way that something gentler probably wouldn’t. People need to be woken up to this, and if I have to be made uncomfortable on the rare occasions I watch commercial tv or go to the cinema, so other people can be educated, thereby minimising the number of times it happens to someone else, I’ll take it. But again, I can’t speak for anyone but myself.

Nonsense, Dennis Strubbe. The only person doing something wrong is the rapist. The woman (not bloody female. Stop using that as a noun) does nothing wrong that causes her to somehow deserve to be raped. There is no situation in which you can argue this without being a scumbag.

First, when talking about human beings, the correct terms are not male and female but men and women.

Second, rapes are committed by rapists. The victim should not be blamed for someone else’s behavior. You don’t blame someone whose car is hit by a drunk driver, you blame the drunk. In exactly the same way you don’t blame a rape victim because a rapist raped them.

You’d think this would be bloody obvious. It sure seems to be with every crime that involves violating or forcing access to something other than a woman’s body. Somehow in these circumstances it suddenly becomes different and the victim becomes somehow complicit.

The conservative focuses on the women, and regards the liberal as crazy for not thinking that the victims need to be fixed.

This is often the case. How many times have we heard folks on the right blame the victims for the way they dress, where they hang out, how they walk, how they flirt, etc.? Countless times. Rape isn’t the victim’s fault–period!

Notice the correction I made. Why is this a shitass example? Because its OBVIOUSLY a shitass example. The conversation is about a woman being able to arm herself in a dangerous world. There is absolutely NO victim blaming and NO suggestion that a woman should be forced to be armed.

Some women want to be armed. Some men want for women to be able to be armed. Then you have others who insist this is a bad idea. If men should be able to carry guns then I definitely think women should be able to, also. If not, nobody should have them.

Is it possible that some of you are being led around now by your own stereotypes of conservative? If this is the case, don’t feel bad about it–become mindful of it in the future. Besides, those on the Right often do this sort of thing, and they do so embarrassingly.

@la tricoteuse, I understand. I’m so sorry you went through that. ((hugs))

I think Dennis Strubbe is just trying to deliberately push peoples buttons. I doubt he really believes what he’s saying.

I’ve been in situations where I was stupid drunk around male friends, been in my underwear in bed with a boyfriend making out and asked him to stop (he did), took a nap on a male friend’s bed while he was watching tv, among other things. It’s creepy to think if I was assaulted under these circumstances there are people out there who would think I bear responsibility for it and not the person who decided to commit an assault. I never thought I was in any danger in any of those situations. It never occurred to me because I believed normal people were against rape, regardless of who the perpetrator is.

Amanda Marcotte has made the point many times that rapists aren’t that common, that a disproportionate number of rapes are committed by a fairly small number of men. She suggests that the Edmonton “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign was successful because it told the bad guys that people were wise to their games.

It’s still essential to change the culture to make it less permissive of rape. Even if there is only a small minority of bad actors, things can be done to make it harder for them to get away with it.

The idea that women bring it upon themselves, especially by the way they dress, is nearly universal despite being demonstrably false. Perhaps the way to eradicate it is to emphasize that rapists are predators, not average guys who got carried away.

Second, rapes are committed by rapists. The victim should not be blamed for someone else’s behavior. You don’t blame someone whose car is hit by a drunk driver, you blame the drunk. In exactly the same way you don’t blame a rape victim because a rapist raped them.

Yes, rape is caused by rapists, but this doesn’t mean that women can’t take actions that involve restricting their own bodies. They already do it btw: not going out when it’s night on their own, they generally don’t go to foreign countries by themselves, etc (all because of fear of sexual harassment, rape, violence, etc).

Monitoring your own behavior also doesn’t imply that females should be regarded one to blame. If it lower you chances of rape, then it’s all up to you whether you monitor your behavior or not. If you don’t, you simply increase you chances of rape. I’m NOT saying they are to blame or they are guilty, just merely observing a factual relationship.

And it is routinely advised by cops to ‘lock your house doors in particular neighborhoods’, ‘lock your car when it’s parked’, ‘hide expensive stuff’, etc. These are good advices cops give us and these are directed to non-criminals. It’s not about blaming or whatever, it’s about lowering your chances of getting robbed.

Second, rapes are committed by rapists. The victim should not be blamed for someone else’s behavior. You don’t blame someone whose car is hit by a drunk driver, you blame the drunk. In exactly the same way you don’t blame a rape victim because a rapist raped them.

Yes, rape is caused by rapists, but this doesn’t mean that women can’t take actions that involve restricting their own bodies. They already do it btw: not going out when it’s night on their own, they generally don’t go to foreign countries by themselves, etc (all because of fear of sexual harassment, rape, violence, etc).

Monitoring your own behavior also doesn’t imply that females should be regarded one to blame. If it lower you chances of rape, then it’s all up to you whether you monitor your behavior or not. If you don’t, you simply increase you chances of rape. I’m NOT saying they are to blame or they are guilty, just merely observing a factual relationship.

And it is routinely advised by cops to ‘lock your house doors in particular neighborhoods’, ‘lock your car when it’s parked’, ‘hide expensive stuff’, etc. These are good advices cops give us and these are directed to non-criminals. It’s not about blaming or whatever, it’s about lowering your chances of getting robbed.

>Seriously, Hannity and you other gun-worshippers. Stop belittling my sex so much.

No.

Nowhere have I (or Hannity) suggested that all men are potential rapists.

This is not the point and I am amazed you think of it in that way.

“Don’t tell women to carry guns, tell men not to rape” is a false dichotomy – we can and should do both.

More to the point – the conservative (which I am not) feels offended by this phrasing because he feels that it implies he is on the same moral level as the rapist. This isn’t what the proponent is implying either, but this is what it comes across as.

I’m sure that if we put out a properly-thought-out ad campaign we could reduce rape. This is not contradictory to women carrying guns, or men carrying guns, to reduce violence.

Maybe there are reasons to ban guns. But this one is a false dichotomy.

would you say that women choosing not to wear certain clothing is a restriction they must adhere to in order to prevent rape?

Not sure, but it is plausible yes.

I’m not sure on what particular aspect women should focus on their behavior when it comes to lowering their chances of rape (be it not going out at night alone, not visiting foreign countries alone, dressing down, etc), but the idea that women should focus on their own behavior is pretty standard reasoning and a very helpful one for that matter.

More to the point – the conservative (which I am not) feels offended by this phrasing because he feels that it implies he is on the same moral level as the rapist.

Seriously? Boo-hoo. Sobbing in my gin, I’ll be losing sleep over this, etc. etc. If someone is so stupid as to feel morally equivalent to a rapist because their solution to carry a gun is seen as ignorant from a statistical standpoint, that’s on them. Maybe youthe conservative should stop redirecting the blame for their emotions when it falls squarely on their own ignorant suggestions.

What other rape prevention tips do we have? Let’s see, there’s don’t ever drink alcohol, don’t wear the wrong clothing, don’t wear the right clothing, don’t have sex (because this will sully your character, and this will be used against you), don’t be too attractive, don’t not be attractive, don’t date a rapist, don’t marry a rapist, don’t be related to a rapist…what else?

would you say that women choosing not to wear certain clothing is a restriction they must adhere to in order to prevent rape?

Not sure, but it is plausible yes.

So, what are the statistics on rape that show that it occurs more regularly to more liberally dressed women as opposed to conservatively dressed women? If it’s plausible you must have something besides intuition to think it’s plausible.

Oh, I know it’s like a radical sentiment, but maybe, just maybe I could possibly suggest that we um, teach men, starting as boy children, that women are not “Things”, and they too have rights, including the right to be safe in their own person from personal attack ?

Yes, rape is caused by rapists, but this doesn’t mean that women can’t take actions that involve restricting their own bodies. They already do it btw: not going out when it’s night on their own, they generally don’t go to foreign countries by themselves, etc (all because of fear of sexual harassment, rape, violence, etc)

So women’s liberty to go where we please must be curtailed for fear of rape? Fuck that shit.

(The phrasing here is very interesting: “this doesn’t mean that women can’t take actions that involve restricting their own bodies.” We’ve gotta “restrict” our bodies; can’t have ’em out in public all free and stuff, ’cause men can’t help themselves, right?)

For the record, I go out at night on my own, and I have traveled to foreign countries by myself, fuck you very much.

So, what are the statistics on rape that show that it occurs more regularly to more liberally dressed women as opposed to conservatively dressed women? If it’s plausible you must have something besides intuition to think it’s plausible.

You are missing my point. I’m claiming that women can monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances. I only gave some examples so that people could visualize those body-monitoring behaviors. Some of my examples can be wrong, but that’s not the point at hand. If it’s untrue that liberally dressed females are raped more, it doesn’t counteract my claim that it’s still wise for women to monitor their own behavior. (and if you have a problem visualizing couple of examples, think about females going alone to foreign countries. Don’t have rape statistics there, but I do know that a lot of women don’t go to foreign countries alone because they are afraid of getting raped.)

Nowhere have I (or Hannity) suggested that all men are potential rapists.

This is not the point and I am amazed you think of it in that way.

“Don’t tell women to carry guns, tell men not to rape” is a false dichotomy – we can and should do both.

I will be polite with you in this interaction. This is so utterly wrong, it’s astounding. Women carrying guns is going to do nearly nothing to help prevent rape. Why? Because:

1. Women already have a choice in a rape situation, fight back and risk escalation with someone who already has shown that they are not at all concerned with their victims’ humanity, or get through and hopefully survive an awful situation that will be over at some point. Adding the threat of lethal violence to this equation is not helpful in almost all cases, since the escalation risk now goes up through the roof.

2. Most rapists know the victim. How many people are going to just go ahead and shoot their husband/boyfriend/friend/date/etc? How many people are going to be prepared when they are being assaulted to use a weapon?

3. Related to two, but broader: Noone should have to be prepared to take a life in order to avoid rape. It’s absurd, and an evil mindset. Killing is a traumatic thing for most people, and not something we should just say is “easy.”

4. Related to three: Look at the other fuckface arguing in here that women are to be blamed for wearing short skirts or whatever the fuck. You know for a fact, or ought to if you are in good faith, that if we start making the “guns to protect women” argument that we are going to start victim blaming “Oh why didn’t she shoot him?” “Why wasn’t she carrying a gun?” We will make it mandatory that women should either have to suffer from even more victim blaming, or that she will have to be ready to kill someone at a moments notice at all times. Fuck, even soldiers don’t deal with that.

5. Related to 4: When a woman does shoot her husband because he was raping her, will she:
A: Be praised by all the Hannities, etc.
B: Go to jail for murder because she’s lying about the rape.

Protip: If you think A, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

6. Many rapes take place when alcohol or other drugs are involved. How is a woman who is drugged going to be made safer by bringing a gun into the situation? Oh look, now you’ve brought a lethal weapon into the situation, escalating it, and with no chance whatsoever of it helping you. Lovely. Oh, no, I mean, fucking terrifying and awful.

More to the point – the conservative (which I am not) feels offended by this phrasing because he feels that it implies he is on the same moral level as the rapist. This isn’t what the proponent is implying either, but this is what it comes across as.

You know what, a poster above addressed this better than I will. But in a sense, I’m going to be point blank, how much more morally secure is the conservative? Sure he might not be actually raping the victim, but he contributes to a culture where the victim will be disbelieved, blames the victim, and protects the rapist(by excusing him, or putting the blame on the woman.) These stresses are deeply related to the effects of rape, to my understanding. Maybe it doesn’t put you on the “same level,” but if it does make you feel uncomfortable and immoral, I mean, maybe it should? Actually, it definitely should.

I’m sure that if we put out a properly-thought-out ad campaign we could reduce rape. This is not contradictory to women carrying guns, or men carrying guns, to reduce violence.

It’s not related to women or men carrying guns, and bringing rape into the gun control debate is a fucking travesty. It shows that the Akin view of rape still dominates. In light of the actual facts about rape, it’s clear that guns won’t help very much at all(and have a huge potential to hurt!) So bringing it up is just crass opportunism for the REpublican party to look pro-woman while still being anti-woman and sucking up to the NRA brigade. It’s a disgrace to every person who makes the argument, and bluntly, anyone making it should feel fucking terrible about themselves for both perpetuating untruths about rape and using the suffering of victims to advance an unrelated political agenda.

Maybe there are reasons to ban guns. But this one is a false dichotomy.

You are missing my point. I’m claiming that women can monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances. I only gave some examples so that people could visualize those body-monitoring behaviors. Some of my examples can be wrong, but that’s not the point at hand. If it’s untrue that liberally dressed females are raped more, it doesn’t counteract my claim that it’s still wise for women to monitor their own behavior. (and if you have a problem visualizing couple of examples, think about females going alone to foreign countries. Don’t have rape statistics there, but I do know that a lot of women don’t go to foreign countries alone because they are afraid of getting raped.)

First off, fuck you.

Secondly, the only thing that would prevent women from being raped would be isolating oneself entirely rom the world. Seriously, plenty of people know that going to some countries is a bad idea because of the deeply patriarchal cultures. But what the fuck can people do? Not live their lives because some bad people are out there? Knowing the red flags is about the only thing that works(violating personal boundaries, etc.) Before you go around making pronouncements I want you to consider the following:

1. Is what I am going to say something that isn’t either obvious or based on common ideas held about rape?
2. Are common ideas about rape generally true(the answer is no so you don’t have to look it up)
3. Am I a good authority on rape? Have I studied it, or experienced it?
4. If I answered no to the above questions ought I to talk, or should I do research and listen?
5. If I can’t figure out the answer to four, am I a fuckwit?(The answer is, of course, yes.)

You are missing my point. I’m claiming that women can monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances.

How do you support that claim, that any of that will decrease their “chances”? How do you support the claim that the restrictions a woman places on her body and location and all that is likely to reduce rape? I could lock myself in a 50×50 meter room with 2 meter thick reinforced steel walls. Maybe then I’ll be totally safe from rape. Absolutely 100% safe from a lot of things. Except feeling like I’m a free and autonomous person.

There is only one fucking restriction, and there is only one person who needs to place that restriction on themselves, and that is the rapist: they shouldn’t be raping.

In what conditions are guys more likely to rape ? We could decline those chances if we act on those identified conditions. This could easily apply to both males behavior as of females behavior

Well, you see, those conditions have been identified. It turns out that the conditions in which rapists are more likely to rape is when they think they can get away with it. The only individual whose actions have a measurably effect on the likelihood of rape is the person deciding to do it. I say individual because general social attitudes can heavily affect whether or not a rapist thinks he can get away with it, for instance. The relevant point, though, is that the actions of the potential victim do not affect the likelihood of their being victimized. So take your rape apology bullshit back up the orifice you pulled it out of.Boris Karpa

Seriously, Hannity and you other gun-worshippers. Stop belittling my sex so much.

No.

Nowhere have I (or Hannity) suggested that all men are potential rapists.

This is not the point and I am amazed you think of it in that way.

No, the point is that a)there is no evidence that carrying a gun reduces the likilihood of being victimized, mostly because, as others have noted here, most rapes are not ‘masked stranger jumping out of an alley.’

“Don’t tell women to carry guns, tell men not to rape” is a false dichotomy – we can and should do both.

No, we shouldn’t. Encouraging people to carry guns is a bad idea generally; an armed society is a violent one.

More to the point – the conservative (which I am not)

If it quacks like a duck…

This is not contradictory to women carrying guns, or men carrying guns, to reduce violence.

Carrying guns to reduce violence, however, is contradictory.

Maybe there are reasons to ban guns. But this one is a false dichotomy.

Since no one in this thread has suggested that, the fact that you jump right to arguing against is is a strong indicator that you are not arguing in good faith.

In the broadest sense we can probably allow that women can alter their behaviour to reduce the chance of rape.
However the next thing is that they already do, all the damn time. And this is before even starting on how they really shouldn’t have to.

You know, it’s funny how the response to the Bernie Madoff scheme wasn’t that “investors should have put their money into U.S> treasuries if they didn’t want to be scammed.” Or “If you put your money in a safety deposit box you definitely won’t have it stolen.”

Instead, we say, wow Madoff is a bad guy and we should punish him. It’s terrible what he did to people.

Why don’t we do that with rape I wonder? (Oh right, sexism and rape culture! How could I forget?)

(Ok, I’m a tad redundant there I see now. But I’m struggling to see Denis’s point otherwise. “we should focus on mean an women in rape….becauuuse…its fairer sounding in some completely irrelevant way?” That’s all I’ve got)

The point is also that women restrict their own behavior because of their own belief system. Even tough a foreign country has almost no rape crimes, her behavior would be more motivated by her own beliefs.

I could lock myself in a 50×50 meter room with 2 meter thick reinforced steel walls. Maybe then I’ll be totally safe from rape. Absolutely 100% safe from a lot of things. Except feeling like I’m a free and autonomous person.

True, but 2 points I want to make
1) i’m not saying what you should do, just stating the facts
2) there is indeed a dilemma between ‘not getting raped’ and ‘not wanting to restrict your own body’. Females have to find the right balance. I’m sure they all do this in their own mind e.g.: ‘I’m not going to take this particular route to my house after 8 pm’. That’s a restriction of her own movement, she might feel less autonomous, but she is satisfied with her decision.
There is ofcourse too much of a restriction where you 100% won’t get raped, but that you feel useless (the example you gave). So some kind of balance is needed where the woman decreases her chances of rape and not going trough life as a non-autonomous being.

There is only one fucking restriction, and there is only one person who needs to place that restriction on themselves, and that is the rapist: they shouldn’t be raping.

That’s a bit unnuanced. The act of rape can have multi determined causes. One of them are the characteristics of the rapists. Situational factors also play a role ofcourse.

The relevant point, though, is that the actions of the potential victim do not affect the likelihood of their being victimized.

False. Like another poster mentioned, she can close herself in a room and her chances would be 0% of getting raped. Not saying it should be that way, but the actions of the potential victim certainly helps to reduce her chances of getting raped.

OK, Dennis, I see this is going nowhere. A last question to you: Suppose a woman walks naked in a park where rapists hang out. On a scale of 1 to 10 (where 1 is No Blame and 10 is Complete Blame) how responsible is that woman for her own rape?

Dennis: Name me a concrete action of use for women, with reasonable statistics, that will reduce her chance of being raped, and that isn’t already something women do in general, and isn’t fucking unreasonable.

Seriously, nobody thinks that there aren’t actions you can take to be less at risk, although they almost certainly come at a huge cost. The question is why bring them up in the first place if not to blame the victim, unless you have hot off the presses research that says that rapists only rape people who do x? Women already have it fucking ingrained into them that they can’t do goddamned anything lest they be blamed for their assault. The most intellectually honest thing you could say would be, hey lets look at those enforced behaviours and see if any of them are actually useful for self-preservation and aren’t just being used to control women or maintain a just world effect(you know, look at common beliefs with skepticism and shit)? The best hope I have is that you are trying to minimize, in your head, the risk that one of your loved ones will be raped, because she avoids x and does y.

* The way you dress has fuck all to do with your chances of being raped.

* Carrying a gun increases your risk of being the victim of gun violence.

I’m not aware of any statistics regarding the risks of being a broad abroad. Men certainly run less risk of purse-snatching, but may compensate by having their pockets picked. Moreover, it’s not at all obvious that one’s safer here than over there. Europe is scarily safe, in my experience. The people in Brazil are disturbingly nice; they even joke about it at the expense of Argentinians.

Not all suggestions for women on how to avoid rape are useless, victim-blaming, counter-productive or ridiculous, but what’s left is pretty meager.

2) there is indeed a dilemma between ‘not getting raped’ and ‘not wanting to restrict your own body’. Females have to find the right balance.

The right balance? Oh, of course. The right balance between not getting raped and having a job. The right balance between not getting raped and going to parties. The right balance between not getting raped and having a relationship, or seeing one’s relatives, or participating in all those things men like you take for granted. And you have the gall to tell women with a straight face that they only should do what rapists allow them to do.

Dennis: Name me a concrete action of use for women, with reasonable statistics, that will reduce her chance of being raped, and that isn’t already something women do in general, and isn’t fucking unreasonable.

I can’t provide this.

Seriously, nobody thinks that there aren’t actions you can take to be less at risk, although they almost certainly come at a huge cost.

Well, not sure of the first part since some people said that they only should look atthe behavior of the rapist. That’s not a good idea and that was my argument.

Women already have it fucking ingrained into them that they can’t do goddamned anything lest they be blamed for their assault.

Yes, that was a huge part of my argument :)

The best hope I have is that you are trying to minimize, in your head, the risk that one of your loved ones will be raped, because she avoids x and does y.

In some sense I guess it’s true. I’m not actively thinking of my girlfriend right now when I talk about this subject, but I would advice the same stuff I outlined here. I would advice her not to go alone at night, I would advice her not to be drunk alone at a party (at least one sober person), etc… So yes, i’m trying to minimize the risk and at the same time be reasonable (i’m not asking her to wear a burka or something to cover herself up :D)

The right balance between not getting raped and having a job. The right balance between not getting raped and going to parties. The right balance between not getting raped and having a relationship, or seeing one’s relatives, or participating in all those things men like you take for granted.

They can all do that without getting raped, so not sure what your point is.

Dennis: Thank you so very much for buying into and working to reinforce the deeply ingrained patriarchal misogynistic attitudes in our culture.

Let me ask this question: why only rape? Is there a crime where people victim blame nearly as much rape? If a woman is assaulted we blame the person who assaults her, if someone defrauds her we blame the grifter, but if she’s raped why do we put ANY blame on her over the rapist? Because that’s what you’re doing Dennis, you are blaming the victim. If you say that there are behaviors that can help keep her safe than you are saying the hypothetical woman who was raped could well have been raped BECAUSE they did not follow these half-baked untested “behaviors”.

No, women should decide on their own if they want companion or not.

I reload my page and you go and bring in an IMMENSELY blinkered, privileged, and condescending response. It is a staggeringly sexist idea that women need chaperones to keep them safe and it is a staggeringly privileged idea that women should curb their individual freedoms to stay safe. When you argue that women must always take special restrictive precautions on their behavior you’re only a step removed from saying women should just stay barefoot in the kitchen.

An assertion given without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Evidence shows that educating and discouraging rapists reduces occurrences of rape. If you cannot provide evidence that educating and discouraging rape victims reduces occurrences of rape then you have no ground to stand on.

Yes, that was a huge part of my argument :)

So in response to the inequality women face and the biases they suffer when they try to get rape and sexual assault taken seriously you drop a smiley and suggest women should suck it up and accept blame for being raped because they didn’t restrict their personal freedoms enough to stay safe. Fuck you.

They can all do that without getting raped, so not sure what your point is.

Vaiyt’s point is that women SHOULD NOT HAVE TO STRIKE THIS BALANCE. Women should NOT have to constantly be concerned that some asshole is going to sexually assault them, and telling them that they CAN strike a balance doesn’t mean they should NEED to.

One of the two things that really struck me into becoming a feminist was when someone at the Richard Dawkins forums pointed out that women can’t generally go places alone out of fear of sexual assault. This was deeply upsetting to me on a very personal level, because I find my solitary walks are vital to my mental health and imagination. Taking that away from me leads to depression. The idea that a full half of the world has to be afraid to do the same deeply upset (the naive priviliged) me.

(The other fact was reading wikipedia and finding the statistic on how many women kill themselves after being raped. I was utterly despondant for weeks after reading that this statstic even exists.)

My point being: Yeah, maybe you can come up with some sort of behaviours that would prevent women from being raped. Maybe the “conventional wisdom” is true(it’s not, but if we’re going to blind ourselves to reality, let’s play pretend.) Then you sit here saying “here’s what women can do to avoid rape” and you take away the things that make life worth living. You can never be alone, but you can also never have any relationship with a man. You can’t stay with parents, and you can’t go to the hospital. You can never fall in love. You can never get drunk. You can never wear clothes that express who you are. You can never leave your home. You can never stare at the stars at night on the beach alone and wonder about your place in the universe. You can never go to university, and if you do you can certainly not live on campus. You could never meet people at a party. You can never meet people at all. You certainly cannot date, and you absolutely cannot get married.

Maybe you could do these things? But at what cost? Your humanity? Your joy? Your hopes? And why don’t we tell the same to men, who all might be potential rapists. Why not tell us that we can all stay inside, and never wear clothes that are easy to take off, and we should all wear handcuffs all the time, and never be around alcohol. That would prevent us from raping, would it not?

But it’s a cruel and needless demand, and sick to contemplate. But sicker that we do this to women now.

Well, not sure of the first part since some people said that they only should look atthe behavior of the rapist. That’s not a good idea and that was my argument.

Yeah, motherfucker, it’s a great idea. Because you know what: I’m a hell of a lot less ignorant than you, and I would still not presume to give suggestions to women about what red flags they should look for in people to try and avoid rapists. We shouldn’t look at the behaviour of the victims, because, first we do this too much as a society, and second it just isn’t helpful and is in fact very harmful. Sitting here conjecturing about what women can do isn’t just bullshitting, it’s harmful bullshitting. Because we already make rape victims justify themselves, and doubt themselves. Adding more fuel to that fire for negligible good is disgraceful.

Sure, you could say have a safe space where women or sociologists came up with good and reasonable ideas for trying to stay safe: (I.e. “Is a guy not taking no for an answer for a date? That’s a red flag.”) But you and me, we aren’t those people and this isn’t that space. This won’t reduce rape, at most it would just change who gets victimized. And not following those suggestions doesn’t make one one bit responsible for being raped, nor does following them provide any safety.

Finally I would reccomend that you not talk to your girlfriend about what to do to avoid being raped. Because you don’t actually know and are likely just going to fuck things up. Whereof where we cannot speak, thereof we must pass over in silence(or fucking listen, maybe?)

My main point is that while you think I am agreeing with you, I am not. Also, fuck you.

Oh Jebus fucking Keerist. Of course Mr. Upper Body Strength Can Totally Beat Up Save A Girl thinks confining women and essentially banning them from public life is an appropriate response to the global epidemic of sexualized violence perpetrated by men against pretty much everyone. Because, yes, let’s pretend that just women get raped. Confine the women inside their houses. Punish them with sexual violence if they challenge the rules. Hey, you were out late at night, that means you broke the rules so you were fair game. Asking for it. Start it young in both boys and girls. Make it clear that they are objects for the pleasure of others. Hold out the prospect of eventually holding power and treating others as objects for pleasure as an enticement to keep the boys quiet if they are sexually assaulted, which they often are. Tell everyone that only women get raped, therefore if you’re a man and you get raped, you’re a woman, and that’s the worst possible thing to be. You wouldn’t want anyone to know that secretly you’re not a “real” man – you’re a failure of a man, you let yourself get abused like a woman. So you keep quiet about it and the women continue to cower inside their houses.

Yeah, Dennis. Sounds like a motherfucking plan. Have you considered moving to Saudi Arabia? I bet you’d find the local mores there more to your taste than Belgium.

Someone needs to write a script like the “flip the patriarchy” script and replace every incidence of “raped” with “assaulted by a rapist,” and “rape” with “an assault by a rapist”, and so on and so forth. It would probably be a useful tool for demonstrating exactly how frequently even those organizing against rape culture talk about incidences of assault by rapists as if it were a hurricane or a tsunami or earthquake.

I want to second what you’re saying Zhuge, and add that not only is it unfairly restrictive, but these edicts of every day living for women who have been victims of rape fill them with guilt. They second-guess their actions, if they aren’t already being second-guessed by people who proscribe the advice in the first place. And that’s fucking hard to do, to hear or feel as if you were responsible for something you shouldn’t be responsible for. That’s what these proscriptions do to the victims – it makes them double victims, guilty of their own victimhood and victims of abuse…

This is an issue that cuts too close to home, and for people like Stubby here to suggest that, you know, it’s just tips, without thinking about how victims feel about those tips, or how it displaces blame ever so slightly away from the person who is definitely 100% responsible, and fills the victims with self-doubt and self-loathing and self-recrimination… Though it might not be Stubby’s intent, they see their advice as a little snowflake of advice and help that women can use to prevent being a victim. They never see the mountain and the avalanche that one flake brings. He’s a privileged fucking ass, and I fucking hate him for it.

Dennis Strubbe, to a first approximation, there isn’t a lot a woman can do to avoid being raped, short of never consenting to being alone with a man, which for various reasons isn’t considered a realistic approach. Much of what is considered common sense – dressing modestly, never walking alone – doesn’t actually make much difference.

Changing the culture actually offers some hope. Withholding approval from rapists when they claim they couldn’t help themselves, or that their victim asked for it, or that she didn’t resist, may help. Shining a light on abusive behavior may help. Just doing a better job of prosecuting rapists would help (no fucking backlogs of untested rape kits!)

If it is the case that relatively few men commit most rapes, then we ought to be able to take an epidemiological approach and target the frequent offenders, perhaps by inculcating our youth with a zero tolerance morality. The cocksman who brags about scoring on someone who’d passed out ought to be sent up, not patted on the back.

I don’t blame you for hating him. What really fucking gets to me is this:

I’m a fucking avid reader of political news. I volunteered for a number of politicians, read Daily Kos elections like it’s my job, preordered Nate Silver’s book when he first announced it, etc.

I wouldn’t presume to advice a candidate on how to win or run a campaign, because even with all that knowledge, I’m still just a neophyte. I may be way more knowledgable than the average jane or joe, but compared to actually professionals I know I know nothing.

Yet this motherfucker comes in and starts giving advice despite having done literally zero research, having clearly done no background reading, having zero lived experience, but just based on “common sense”. It’s not just offensive to the dignity and rights of women, it’s not just cruel to the victims of rape and women the world over, it violates the basic rules of human interaction. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, you keep your motherfucking mouth shut. I mean God damn, is this hard? The easiest way not to accidently step on people’s toes during a dance that you have never done or seen before is to not dance at all, at least until you’ve actually taken a class or tried to learn what the dance is.

Sallystrange,
Denial of reality in the service of toxic ideology is a very narrow field of operations, that only allows for certain tactics by its nature. You’ll see it in liberturds,MRAs, creationists, AGW deniers, etc. Etc. Etc.

They can also walk into dark alleys at night, dress sluttily, get drunk at parties, bring strangers into their house, all withou getting raped.

MY point is that rape DOES occur in all those situations I mentioned, and many more.
The common “precautions” against rape that you and every other asshole before you keep mentioning only take into account a minority of rape cases, ones that follow a narrow script: “An attack towards a victim capable of resisting, by a stranger, in an isolated place”.
The majority of rapists are NOT strangers to the victims. Many who do are smart enough to strike when the victim is vulnerable. Most rapes are done far away from dark alleys.
Your precautions are bullshit because they fail to address where and how rape actually is done to women.

Ah, I had imagined someone who had never even heard of salsa dansing running up, demanding someone dance with them, and then just making things up on the fly in accordance with what they imagine salsa would be.

(As opposed to going to a training session with an open mind, or just asking the person to show you the ropes).

First, this was originally about using guns to prevent rape. There could have been an intelligent conversation about carrying small-caliber pistols with laser sights like the one Rick Perry allegedly carried while jogging and used to shoot a coyote. There are pink versions for women! Obviously if you aren’t packing heat you’re asking for anything that happens to you.

Second, which no one has noticed, is that Zerlina is the name of one of the characters in Don Giovanni, about as unlikely as other such confections by Mozart and da Ponte as Fiordiligi, Dorabella or Despina.

In my time zone it isn’t even midnight yet, but one of my radio-controlled clocks has already set itself forward. Happy Daylight Saving Time?

Um, zhuge, just to be clear, I’m an old hippie, for whom being able to do anything more than just hop up and down in place at a concert was a rare extravagance. More recently, which is to say twenty years ago, in the few places I found myself the guys tended to be reluctant to dance; I got credit just for showing up. Unfortunately, someone caught me on video, and I saw it, and I’ve hardly danced since then, knowing how bad I look.

It’s good advice to dance like no one’s watching, but it’s not easy to forget.

Dennis:
Do not come back until you educate yourself on rape culture. It is never the womans fault for getting raped. It is the rapist who makes the decision to rape.
If you had educated yourself you would know that women get raped in all manner of locations, with or without a companion, by family members or friends or complete strangers, wearing little clothing or in a burka, at night or during the day, on a crowded street or an empty one, at work or at home, with or without a gun, stone cold drunk or sober, ignoring a guy or flirting with one…the list goes on. The reason there is nothing a woman can do to minimize getting raped is because the decision to do the rape is made by the rapist. This is not hard to comprehend if you leave your assumptions at the door, shut your victim blaming yap, and go read. A lot.

Every time someone blames the victim in rape threads, I always make that statement. It’s true. Even completely ensconcing a woman in black cloth, eliminating every aspect of her individuality is not enough to stop a person from raping her. The sad conclusion of my post is that when a woman in a burka is raped, she’s usually stoned afterwards for the crime of adultery or some such nonsense.

The only thing that can stop women from being raped is if people don’t rape them.

Oh, I agree. It’s a very vivid statement, detached from the jargon and words that distance us from the brutality of what we are discussing. It’s brilliant and didactic and terrifying and I really appreciate it, even if it is very depressing and scary. I think I will use that in the future, I suspect.

I know all this has been said upthread and said better than I will, but this has got me so fucking angry … any anyway, it bears repeating.

Dennis Strubbe
You stupid evil arrogant vile piece of shit. You have shown yourself in these comments to be so monumentally, disgustingly misinformed and complacent that it almost takes my breath away.

First of all, you putrescent little fucker, remember this: MOST RAPES ARE COMMITTED BY SOMEONE KNOWN TO THE VICTIM. By relatives, by husbands or boyfriends, by dates, by friends (make that “friends”). MOST rapes. It’s not that stranger-in-a-dark-alley attacks never happen, but they are a MINORITY OF CASES.

Secondly, there is NO EVIDENCE that the way you dress or look or act makes any difference. Because women in concealing clothing get raped too. Elderly women get raped too. Children get raped too. Women get raped in their own homes. In broad daylight. In “safe” places.

Oh, and “don’t go to other countries alone”? Statistics, please. Women live in those “other countries” too, you know (and watch the nascent racism there …)

If you think you have evidence then fucking well produce some. Don’t just sit there vomiting your slimy mess all over the thread with a superior little smirk on your face.

YOU and people like you are the problem. As has already been pointed out, it is overwhelmingly the case that rapists rape WHEN THEY THINK THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. And they can get away with it when most of society thinks like YOU. You revolting, loathsome, malignant cancer on society.

Yes, I am angry. Rather than squeal about it, why not take two seconds to think about why. Oh yes, it’s because people like you, who puke up the kind of “arguments” and “advice” that you do are ACTIVELY MAKING THE SITUATION WORSE, not better, because you are PROVIDING COVER FOR THE RAPISTS.

Society already looks at the behaviour of the victims all the fucking time, you self-blinkered simpleton. And it doesn’t help. Now at last we are calling for the behaviour of the perpetrators to be the focus.

PS fuck you. Fuck you, you repugnant douche, you and those like you are a massive part of what is wrong.

Monitoring your own behavior also doesn’t imply that females should be regarded one to blame.

But it does and is used by the courts, the police, and friends and family. One woman that Wife knows was raped when we lived in New Hampshire. She had been out drinking and called a cab. A man offered her a ride home when the cab didn’t arrive. She reluctantly accepted and was raped. The police were not helpful when she reported the rape –“Why did you get into a stranger’s car?” was a repeated question. They also asked why she was dressed so provacatively, like she was asking for sex. They also wanted to know why she was out alone instead of with a man. It was never investigated. Why? Because she didn’t take the proper precautions.

The sister of a friend of mine, a 13-year-old girl, was raped. Amazingly, the police investigated the crime. They made an arrest. And, even more amazing, the DA pressed charges. In the trial, the defense introduced the summer clothing she was wearing into evidence — shorts and a halter top. Despite his skin under her nails from scratching his face, despite friends having seen him strong-arm her away, and despite a match in the rape kit at the hospital, the judge allowed the clothing evidence and the jury acquited. Why? Because she had not taken the proper precautions.

So yes, it does mean that women who do not monitor their behaviour in your preferred way do get blamed.

And it is routinely advised by cops to ‘lock your house doors in particular neighborhoods’, ‘lock your car when it’s parked’, ‘hide expensive stuff’, etc. These are good advices cops give us and these are directed to non-criminals. It’s not about blaming or whatever, it’s about lowering your chances of getting robbed.

Why do so many people regard women as a valuable that must be protected rather than a human being who must be valued?

I’m not sure on what particular aspect women should focus on their behavior when it comes to lowering their chances of rape

And yet you feel quite comfortable telling women that they must avoid going out at night, not travel, wear the right clothing, etc. And when they are raped, are you going to ask what they were doing out at night? where were they? what were they wearing?

I’m claiming that women can monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances.

What makes you think women don’t do this already? Does it work? No. Never has and never will because it does not address the problem which is that men make a decision to rape. What she is wearing, where she is, who she is with, really does not make a whole shitload of difference.

This shows that women already monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances of rape. This is nothing new. Giving advices/tips for women isn’t anything new either.

And yet it doesn’t work. But, as the two cases I discussed at the beginning of this comment imply, it does affect how women are treated when they are raped.

I’ll take a different tack, here. I am a survivor (I hope, anyway). I was raped, repeatedly, by my scout leader. So what should I have been wearing? Should I have not gone camping with the other scouts? Maybe wearing shorts and a cub scout shirt was too much?

It would help people to focus on both males and females to decrease the rate of rape.

Then why is 99% of the advice to reduce rape telling women what they can and cannot do?

Like another poster mentioned, she can close herself in a room and her chances would be 0% of getting raped.

Women in severely restrictive societies, such as Wahabbist Saudi Arabia, still get raped. Even locking a woman away as a valuable does not work because men, even the men ‘protecting’ her, may still make a decision to rape and that decision is beyond the control of women.

That’s a ‘tad’ bit of an overreaction. :D

You are already on record that you are in favour of restricting women’s behaviour based on your standards. How far are you willing to go to protect your women?

No, women should decide on their own if they want companion or not.

And if one of those women is raped, will you tell her it was her fault because she didn’t have a chaperone?

(i’m not asking her to wear a burka or something to cover herself up

But you are still advocating restricting her behaviour — you are treating her as a precious object, one of your valuables.

Dennis, you are visiting a blog in which there are quite a few survivors. Some of us have admitted what happened and have spoken out. Some of us are too afraid, or too much in denial, or feeling too guilty to speak of our reality.

I didn’t tell anyone for over thirty years and, even now, I have not told anyone using my real name or in meat space. Why didn’t I tell? Because I knew that it was my fault. I joined scouts of my own volition. I agreed to his assault, the first time, to gaurantee he would keep quiet after I pissed my pants (and he and his wife were the ones urging me to drink lots of Pepsi on the drive out to the stock tank). I, sometimes, enjoyed what he did (well, my body enjoyed it — my brain? no way). I stayed in scouts. I never actually said no to this huge man (I was 9 and 10 years old). And I knew that what he was doing to me was so shameful, so horrible, so feminising, that I could never tell. I and still haven’t even told my wife because I carry so much guilt for what he did to me.

Guilt. And assholes like you keep piling it on. Have a chaperone (I did and he raped me). Don’t dress provocatively (everything is provocative to someone). Don’t be out at night (camping trips). All your ‘don’t get raped’ tips do not prevent rape. They do, however, make it less likely that a rape will be reported because the victim feels guilty. They do, however, make it less likely that the police will investigate a reported rape because every action of the victim is examined to see if she asked for it. They do, however, make it less likely that a DA will press charges, or the jury will convict, because every action of the victim is examined to see is she asked for it.

This is just one small aspect of a phenomenon called rape culture. We all tell people that rape is wrong. And then, when a man (almost always a man) decides to rape, society finds as many ways as possible to blame the victim.

And this relates directly back to the original post — telling women that carrying a gun will prevent rape. Would it have prevented the rape of the little sister of my friend? Should a thirteen-year-old be packing heat? When the man took hold of her arm and twisted it up behind her back, should she have shot him right then and there and be charged with murder or manslaughter? Or should she have waited until he had dragged her to a private spot?

Would carrying a gun have prevented the rape of Wife’s friend up in New Hampshire? When should she have shot him? And how likely is it that the police would listen to a drunk woman dressed like a slut who claims that she shot him because he was going to rape her?

The attitudes that you, Dennis Strubbe, have shown here are part of the culture that makes rape acceptable — most of the time, anyway. And you are telling survivors that the rape really is their fault. You are telling me, and others here, that it is my fault that I was raped. Thank you so very much for piling on just a little more guilt. I needed that.

Going alone to foreign country = higher chance of rape. Not going alone to foreign country = lower chance of rape.

Do we make it mandatory for women to bring chaperones when going out of the country?

opposablethumbs:

Oh, and “don’t go to other countries alone”? Statistics, please. Women live in those “other countries” too, you know (and watch the nascent racism there …)

This is something I thought was important to address. The “don’t go to foreign countries alone” thing has problematic implications above and beyond the (very important) issue of women having their autonomy/movements limited by questions of safety thanks to the misbehaviour of others.

It once again implies that women are, in some way, possessions. “Our” women go to “their” countries and get raped. “Their” women come to “our” countries and get raped (we’ll deny THAT part, of course, because Our People are better than Their People, but everywhere you can go is native to someone, and everywhere you can come from is foreign to everyone who doesn’t come from there, so everywhere you can travel to and get raped, you can also come from and travel elsewhere and get raped…putting aside for a moment that you can stay right where you’re from and be just as likely to get raped).
The “don’t go abroad alone” thing either suggests that every country’s people think men in other countries are more likely to be rapists (the “foreigner as less civilised” trope) or that men are more likely to rape women that they see as other in some way, rather than their own. Not ours, but theirs. They are raping our women, or “American women are easy/up for it” (to use one example stereotype), it’s still all about ownership or othering.

Oh geez. How about making sure that young people get proper sexual education, where rape is a topic. In these lessons they learn what rape is; that it is soul crushing and a crime, and that yes, they shouldn’t do it. Ever.

But what I consider much more important is to teach how to set boundaries with clear communication and that those boundaries have to be respected. So that when someone hears “no” in this clear kind of way, it means “no” and they should stop what they are doing. It should also be taught that merely showing the boundary will not put a burden on the relationship. It means “No” for the current situation and it means that it may never be more than that, which will also be made clear if this is so.

There are two problems that get lost with all the abstractions. Problem number one is that courtship and sexually charged situations are full of ambiguities, unclear communication and innuendo. In some cultures men are expected to be somewhat persistent and not give up too quickly. We won’t change this tomorrow. This is why learning to “meta”, i.e. leave the game and comment on it (by saying that game has ended) is an important skill.

The other problem is that when you let someone close, you actually like the other person, you just don’t want certain things just now. Or in a marriage, you probably love your partner, you just don’t want do have sex at that point. This is why the whole thing must start witch clear communication and learning that setting and respecting boundaries is a completely OK thing. It doesn’t ruin the friendship, its not asking for a divorce, it just means, at that point “no, I’m not feeling for it right now, respect this.”.

Dennis, shut the fuck up, you clueless mansplaining douchewagon. Everybody here has heard your arguments before, and most have refuted them in detail many times over. With citations, which you don’t provide.

Also, stop fucking saying “males” and “females” and use “men” and “women” instead.

@124, mythbri
Your link seems to rather support what I wrote. And when you deal with that “relatively narrow sliver of the population” (taken from the link) that does it deliberately and won’t listen, you are on a different territory entirely.

That “relatively narrow sliver of the population” exists within the greater population.

When myths about men, women and consent are allowed to be accepted as truths, like this (I’m blockquoting myself to make these easy to differentiate from the meat of my comment):

“Women don’t know what they want”

“Women are flighty and will change their minds at the drop of a hat”

“Women are hard to understand”

“Women are practically a separate species”

“Women are the gatekeepers of sex – they don’t like it in and of itself’

“After a certain point, women can’t say no”

“Women can’t say no to this kind of sex if they’ve said yes to that kind of sex”

“Men can’t stop themselves after a certain point”

“Men have simple, one-track minds – you have to practically write NO in sky-writing to get them to understand”

“Men are visual creatures – their brains shut down if they see an attractive woman”

“Men can’t be expected to control themselves”

When these myths are perpetuated and accepted in the population at large, it provides cover for the small portion of the population that uses these things as excuses for their behavior. It makes it easier for them to claim “I didn’t understand!”

They understand. And they understand how to use this culture to their advantage, to avoid punishment for their crimes.

So a guy who would never, ever think of willfully misunderstanding a woman’s refusal to have sex with him will turn around to defend his buddy, claiming that since women aren’t clear in what they want, then his buddy didn’t do anything wrong. That woman should have been more explicit in her refusal! So really, she has nothing to complain about.

Unfortunately Dennis’ mindset explains why so many rapists walk free even when charged, and why many women don’t report being raped. If people feel that there was something that the victim could have done to avoid rape, then there is no reason to punish the rapist. After all, the woman is somehow to blame (even if partially) for what happened to her.

Scary that this mindset is still so prevalent when it should be obvious that there is nothing that a woman can do to avoid being raped. Having a gun doesn’t mean that you won’t be victimized. What happens if the rapist is able to get the gun away from the victim or if the victim shoots but doesn’t kill the rapist?

Good for Ms. Maxwell to try to talk some sense to Mr. Hannity. Not surprised that it didn’t work.

Problem number one is that courtship and sexually charged situations are full of ambiguities, unclear communication and innuendo.

And I responded by saying that even though this is the perception, both men and women are capable of giving and understanding less-than-explicit refusals. The people in this world who claim that they cannot, and use that to excuse rapes they’ve committed, are given cover by the idea that this is so difficult. I wasn’t trying to “interpret” your comment in any other way.

The right kind of sex/relationship education can help change this – this is not something that I am contesting. What I was focusing was your use of the words “unclear communication” in the context of this discussion about teaching men not to rape.

Is that clear enough for you? Or would you again like to accuse me of being an asshole who misinterprets what you’re trying to say?

I was attempting to engage your first comment here in good faith, and as I’ve stated, there was only one area where I had a slight disagreement with you. I separated the portion of MY first comment that addressed you from the portion in which I addressed Dennis Stubble, in which I called him a paternalistic asshole. I did not come into this thread calling YOU an asshole.

Going alone to foreign country = higher chance of rape. Not going alone to foreign country = lower chance of rape.

Are you effin kidding me?!? I know others have already piled on you for this, but this is so a) disgusting and b) wrong that I can’t help but join in.

I am a woman who has spent a LOT of time traveling alone in many foreign countries – my handle is viajera for a reason. Mostly countries in Latin America, you know, where those scary brown and black people live (yes, I’m implying – nay, saying straight out – that your comment is disgustingly racist). I’ve even hitched rides in cars with men during my travels, alone, sometimes while drinking, sometimes while wearing revealing clothes. You know how many times I’ve been raped while traveling alone in foreign countries? Zero.

You know when and where I was assaulted (I hesitate to call it rape, because $Reasons, even though it probably was)? In my bedroom in my suburban, white-bread apartment in the US, by my partner at the time.

You know what the difference between these scenarios was? The presence of a man determined to rape. That is all.

132, mythbri
both men and women are capable of giving and understanding less-than-explicit refusals. The people in this world who claim that they cannot, and use that to excuse rapes they’ve committed

With clear communication nobody can hide behind not having understood it. With proper sexual education nobody can shed responsibility of not having noticed anything or thinking that their actions (i.e. rape) were okay. And when people already know all of this, sexual education won’t harm. Right?

Is that clear enough for you? Or would you again like to accuse me of being an asshole who misinterprets what you’re trying to say?

And where did that happen? Let me guess, you mean because I call the regular maneuver Asshole Hermeneutics™? Oh noes!

Somehow I’m betting that the Venn diagram of
– people who believe that “dudes are gonna rape” (thanks, Hankstar) so women need to arm themselves,
and
– people who believe that Schrodinger’s Rapist was written by a feminazi who hates all men and HOW DARE you accuse all men (ME) of being a rapist?!!?

With clear communication nobody can hide behind not having understood it. With proper sexual education nobody can shed responsibility of not having noticed anything or thinking that their actions (i.e. rape) were okay. And when people already know all of this, sexual education won’t harm. Right?

Please quote me saying that sexual/relationship education would cause any kind of harm.

Given that most of the victims of rape are women, and most of the perpetrators of rape are men, currently the burden of “clear communication” falls on the group of people most likely to be victims, despite the capability of the group of people most likely to be rapists to have no problem understanding non-explicit refusals. Indeed, lack of “clear communication” is used to dismiss reporting, investigating and prosecuting rapists.

Problem number one is that courtship and sexually charged situations are full of ambiguities, unclear communication and innuendo

I haven’t looked to see who wrote this, but I do know it was a rape apologist. I saw a recent study showing that yes, women do often refuse sexual/courtship invitations from men in ways that are designed not to give offense, and to save face for the man, and that men understand these refusals perfectly well. I can’t recall where, ring any bells for anyone?

I do not care whether I’m technically being blamed for sexual violence committed against me or not. The fact of the matter is, when I’m told to restrict my behaviour or engage in additional behaviours in order not to be raped, I’m being made responsible for actions taken against me that shouldn’t occur in the first place and would happen far less if people knew they were wrong and wouldn’t get away with them.

Stop piling the responsibility on me. Hold people accountable to the fullest extent before they commit rape.

And let’s be honest – the people who push rape prevention techniques on victims always emphasise them to a FAR greater extent than they do holding the rapist accountable.

And it is routinely advised by cops to ‘lock your house doors in particular neighborhoods’, ‘lock your car when it’s parked’, ‘hide expensive stuff, etc. These are good advices cops give us and these are directed to non-criminals. It’s not about blaming or whatever, it’s about lowering your chances of getting robbed.

So, you’re essentially telling me I’m stuff that needs to be hidden and locked away. Nice.
Are you also aware that “locking your house/car” is not something that imensely limits you in your daily life? Because it makes no fucking difference to my plans and life whether I lokc the door or not. Not going ot after dark, not travelling abroad, not having a drink in a bar, OTOH are ridiculous restrictions that
A) don’t work anyway
B) are completely unreasonably. Why should guys be allowed to enjoy life for full while I have to hide at home (actually the most likely place to get raped) or under a burqa?

Not sure, but it is plausible yes.

Ahhh, I think there’s a misunderstanding. You mixed up the word “plausible” with “patently false”

but the idea that women should focus on their own behavior is pretty standard reasoning and a very helpful one for that matter.

So, would you like to show us some data? You know “pretty standard reasoning” doesn’t win people over here.

I’m claiming that women can monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances.

Yeah, we hear that. We notice that you failt to provide any evidence that it works or any argument why this should be reasonable.
Do you think women aren’t raped in Saudi Arabia and do you think that restricting the freedoms of 50% of humanity because 6% of the other half can’t behave is reasonable or just?

Some of my examples can be wrong, but that’s not the point at hand. If it’s untrue that liberally dressed females are raped more, it doesn’t counteract my claim that it’s still wise for women to monitor their own behavior.

Wrong again. You make the claim, you put up the evidence AND the argument.

Simply stating that women GENERALLY don’t go to foreign countries on their own because they have the fear of rape. That’s a fact.

Now I’m wondering
Am I not a woman? I went to live in 2 foreign countries totally on my own. I will not even count the number of times I crossed the border into some other countries for a short trip alone. So, tell me again, if it were true, why should guys be able to do a study abroad which gives you a severe advantage on your CV but women not because they must fear rape (as if they were safe on a US college campus).

This shows that women already monitor their own behavior in order to decrease their chances of rape. This is nothing new. Giving advices/tips for women isn’t anything new either.

Here’s something that might be news to you: It doesn’t work. You know, if you take homeopathy in order to heal your cancer it doesn’t make it work either.

No, that’s what we call an unsupported claim, also known as pulling shit right out of your arse.

That’s a bit unnuanced. The act of rape can have multi determined causes. One of them are the characteristics of the rapists. Situational factors also play a role ofcourse.

Name one. Name one that leads to a rape without a rapist deciding not to care about the consent of the other person. What causes rape apart from a rapist?
Oh, and since rape apparently depends so much on the victims behaviour, what are those kids who get raped every year supposed to do to decrease their chances?

I can’t provide this.

So, you finally admit that you are simply bullshitting. So, why should anybody listen to your crap?

So yes, i’m trying to minimize the risk and at the same time be reasonable (i’m not asking her to wear a burka or something to cover herself up

See, ladies. Aren’t you already lining up for Dennis? Because he will only tell you what to do what is reasonable. You know, not enjoying the liberties he himself enjoys and being happy with it is totally reasonable. Most of you were born with a vagina, so take responsibility!

They can all do that without getting raped, so not sure what your point is.

No, shitface. You insisted that we have to monitor our behaviour to decrease our risks.
Here’s some news: not all jobs are from 9-5. Mine ends at 9pm. So I can either walk around alone after dark or I can have a job.

vaiyt

>They can also walk into dark alleys at night, dress sluttily, get drunk at parties, bring strangers into their house, all withou getting raped.

>
Been there, done that. And that. And that. Oh, that one, too.
No rape. Last time I was sexually molested? 5pm, wearing a winter coat, holding the door for my children at the house we live in…

zhuge

Seriously, nobody thinks that there aren’t actions you can take to be less at risk, although they almost certainly come at a huge cost.

It should be noticed that a lot of these actions don’t mean that there will be no rape. They simply mean somebody else gets raped.

Boris Karpa

I’m sure that if we put out a properly-thought-out ad campaign we could reduce rape. This is not contradictory to women carrying guns, or men carrying guns, to reduce violence.

Apart from the fact that it doesn’t work, of course…

Owlglass

Problem number one is that courtship and sexually charged situations are full of ambiguities, unclear communication and innuendo.

Bullshit, as mythbri already showed. Nobody “acidentially rapes”

Your link seems to rather support what I wrote. And when you deal with that “relatively narrow sliver of the population” (taken from the link) that does it deliberately and won’t listen, you are on a different territory entirely.

So, you think that rapists who actually don’t care about the signals their victims show are much better at deciphering them than people who are actually interested in finding out what this other person wants and if they are interested in them. Yeah, makes sense…

With clear communication nobody can hide behind not having understood it

So, you’re putting the blame on the victim who didn’t communicate clearly enough. Nice. Did you actually read the link? BTW, recently in Germany the rapist of a 15 yo gilr walked free. Oh, she said no. She said no clearly and loudly. But the judge said it wasn’t enough. She should have fought harder.

allegro

Amanda Marcotte addressed this brilliantly…

If Consent Was Really That Hard, Whiny Dudes Would Fail at Every Aspect of Life

Absolutely. The same folks will manage to live with a cat/dog/rattlesnake but still claim that the communication with another human being is totally impossible…

You know those who promote women owning guns to protect themselves always seem to miss? The fact that gun ownership isn’t free. Neither is the ammunition.

And not all women (or people) are going to automatically know how to handle a gun. Especially in a high stress situation! If you’re not trained in some way, you really have *no* idea how you’re going to react, and you may be taken off guard — and then you’ll be dead.

But no one ever talks about that, do they? They just talk about gun ownership. And then it’s crickets. Nothing about the cost or the time or the knowledge needed in owning, handling, and properly using a gun.

And what about actually using it to hurt or kill people? Not everyone is okay with that.

There is this silent notion that everyone should be okay with owning a gun, and using a gun, and hurting someone, and even killing someone. Which is really fucked up.

And, as others have mentioned, you can’t prevent violence with more fucking violence!

This boils down to a core philosophical difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals see people as dynamic, nuanced, imperfect, capable of doing good and bad things, and capable of changing through experience and education to be more or less likely to do good or bad things. Conservatives see a world of “good people” and “bad people.” Look at any gun control debate – if you ban guns, bad people will still get guns because bad people ignore rules. Good people, the only ones who will obey the gun control law, wouldn’t ever do bad things with the guns anyway. Same thing here – rapists are “bad people.” Telling a bad person not to rape won’t make the bad person not rape. And good people who would listen wouldn’t rape, so they don’t need to be told! It’s a ridiculous worldview. But it permeates conservative logic and beliefs. Look at any political debate and closely examine the conservative position, and you’ll see at least the fingerprints of this binary “good people and bad people” worldview. It applies almost everywhere.

Why do so many people regard women as a valuable that must be protected rather than a human being who must be valued? ~Ogvorbis

QFMFT
.

Why the hell should any human being be expected to sacrifice hir rights in hopes of preventing a bodily assult? Why should any human being live in fear while the perpetrators of these crimes are openly supported vis-à-vis victim blaming?

While several psychological theories of rape have been developed, Tannen’s ‘miscommunication’ model is dominant, informing ‘expert’ and popular accounts alike. Rape is
constructed as an extreme example of miscommunication – whereby women’s ‘failure’ to
say ‘no’ is interpreted by men as sexual consent. Kitzinger and Frith have demonstrated
that young women have an implicit understanding of the normative interactional structure
of refusal, and it is this that explains their difficulty in ‘just saying no’ to unwanted sex.
However, Kitzinger and Frith’s study could not demonstrate, but only argue, that young
men share this sophisticated understanding, such that women saying ‘no’ should not be
necessary to refuse sexual intimacy. Here we extend Kitzinger and Frith’s study, via the
analysis of data from two focus groups held with young men. We demonstrate that, as
Kitzinger and Frith suggested, men not only do have a refined ability to hear verbal
refusals that do not contain the word ‘no’, but also – and importantly – an equally refined
ability to ‘hear’ the subtlest of non-verbal sexual refusals.

But no one ever talks about that, do they? They just talk about gun ownership. And then it’s crickets. Nothing about the cost or the time or the knowledge needed in owning, handling, and properly using a gun.

That is an excellent point. I have a gun at home, under the bed in a gun box. I have never taken a class on how to use it. I don’t know how to load it. I doubt I could operate it safely without help. I certainly wouldn’t have time to get it out, load it and use it before an intruder could get into my home. And that’s all supposing stranger rape, which is the rarest form of rape.

The whole thing is about blame-shifting, of course. “Why didn’t you have a gun?” is just another way to blame the victim. And–more to the point–I’m not really willing to arm myself and possess a willingness to use deadly force at any time. That’s not the life I want to live.

I grew up around guns and I’m somewhat comfortable with them (my dad has always had guns, but he has also always kept them locked in safes).

I also worked at the public defender’s office and jail in my home county (when I was really young), and I grew up in Arizona, so I’m kind of used to guns. But I’ve never owned a gun. I wanted to at one point because I lived in a really terrible apartment in a bad neighborhood, but now that I’m in a much better place with plenty of security and in a better neighborhood, I no longer have that desire.

But man, if you don’t know how to use the gun, what’s even the point, really? At that point, it’s more dangerous to own than not own, in my opinion.

And I was less worried about rape and way more worried about robery when I lived in a less-safe neighborhood and apartment, btw.

Well, except during the day when I didn’t have a car. Down the street from my apartment, a woman really was dragged into an alley way and assaulted (though I don’t know specific details). And if anyone remembers the “Baseline Killer”, I called the witness hotline at one point.

I didn’t have a car when I first moved to Phoenix. I didn’t have the money for one. But I still had to work and provide for myself, or I’d have to go back to the small home town that I really did not want to go back to. I was determined to stay here in the city.

I was *also* determined not to have roommates, because man, fuck roommates.

That required living in less-than-ideal locations. And not owning a car meant having to take public transportation and walking around outside. A lot. Sometimes at night! Sometimes it’s just not avoidable, or you make the decision to do it anyway because fucking christ, I wanted to be independent and have a life! There’s nothing wrong with that.

I spent 8 years living alone and without a car in Phoenix (I’ve had one since 2008). I have STORIES, oh boy do I have stories.

I’ve told some of them in other venues, and if I thought Dennis was being at all serious (I don’t, I think he’s just bored and lazily and badly trolling), I could relay how many fucking times people (mostly men) blamed me. One time I had several men pile one me and tell me that I was an awful person who hated men and who thought all men were rapist all because when a strange man drove up behind me at 5am when it was still pitch black outside and said, “Hey, baby, want a ride?” I screamed, “NO, FUCK OFF!” and ran to the bus stop (where thankfully there were a few others already waiting for the first bus).

I was, apparently, a “man-hating bitch who was really mean to some guy who just wanted to be nice and give you a ride!”

But what would have been the response if I hadn’t ran? If I had instead frozen in my spot? Or if he had had a gun? Or if I actually gotten inside the car? What if, hmm? More than likely, I would have been blamed. For not responding in time. For getting in.

For daring to walk to the bus stop at 5am before the sun has come up because I have to be at my new job at 7am and it’s an hour and a half away by bus (a year later, I got a car, haha).

How dare I do what men would do without a fucking second thought, amiright, Dennis?

The thing that gets me, marilove, is that these folks are suggesting women like your younger self should be armed. As if you would be able to afford a gun and the requisite accessories, first of all, or the training to know how to use one, should you not have been familar with them (not to mention the time/energy/money it would have taken to learn). Talk about privilege!

I saw a recent study showing that yes, women do often refuse sexual/courtship invitations from men in ways that are designed not to give offense, and to save face for the man, and that men understand these refusals perfectly well. I can’t recall where, ring any bells for anyone?
–Nick Gotts

I am sorry for not posting a trigger warning with that anti-rape campaign ad; it was careless of me. I’m going to say some things now that might be triggering, but I think they’re important. I find it revealing that so many found the ad so disturbing, because this is one of the truths that folks like Hannity need to accept: That video was not especially violent in the way that too many people think of as violent – it did not represent what Hannity and his sort think of when they think of rape. Too many people think of rape as only happening along with other physical assault, a violent attack by a stranger in a dark alley, the victim surviving and being covered in defensive wounds along with the trauma inflicted by her attacker. We live in a culture in which the term ‘gentleman rapist’ is used, as though it’s not an oxymoron, to describe men who rape but don’t otherwise brutalize the women they assault. And there are plenty of men who wouldn’t count themselves as having raped because they’ve never brutalized a woman, but aren’t sure whether some of the sex they’ve had was entirely mutually consensual. (I know it’s a stretch, but if we’ve been able to change the culture’s feelings about drinking and driving over the past 30 years, perhaps in another 30 we can change the attitude about drinking and fucking. Although I suppose this might necessitate locking men’s genitals up and being able to take away their keys.)

Oh, and enough with this notion that there is an open invitation to sex unless a woman protests. To me, the ‘no means no’ approach just teaches boys and men that they should assume that all their advances are okay unless and until a woman says no. If you’re making out with a woman and she says, ‘no’ or ‘stop’, then you stop. But the operative word you need to hear is ‘YES’. It doesn’t break the mood and it doesn’t take more than five seconds to check in with your partner to ask whether they’re okay and if they want to continue. And that’s what we need to teach girls and young women – not simply that it’s okay to say NO but that it’s also okay to say YES.

And finally, because it drives me up the fucking wall, enough with this ‘what women can do to avoid rape’ bullshit! We can avoid being hit by lightening by not going out in a lightening storm, or if we find ourselves outside in one, knowing not to seek shelter under a tree. We can avoid frostbite in frigid weather by dressing appropriately. We can protect against sun damage to our skin by covering up, finding shade, or wearing sunscreen lotions. We can use an umbrella in the rain to keep our heads dry. But we cannot protect ourselves from rape, because rape isn’t a natural phenomenon. Rape doesn’t just happen like weather. It doesn’t just exist in the environment like a communicable disease. And pretending that it does is just a ploy to keep the focus off the responsibility and agency of the men who are doing the raping.

Do you see where they explicitly acknowledge that sexual education is a good idea, but also take issue with how one of the premises you are using to justify the need for sexual education is false, and that this is empirically demonstrable?

Sexual education is a good idea. The idea that rape is caused by men’s inability to accurately perceive consent or lack thereof is empirically false. Mythbri was agreeing with you on the first point, and taking issue with the second. Are you capable of parsing this?

You had strong disagreement with what I wrote, where I then told you again what I wrote, and you give me this? Too bad, your attempt at pulling out interpretations become so apparent. So you really go against your own interpretations and assumptions, hence Asshole Hermeneutics™. Then you brought that link where you intended to show that my views are wrong (putting it mildly, we know how FTBullies operate, if someone with a slightly different perspective isn’t walking away as a misogynist concentration camp guard who wants slavery back, something went wrong).

So where do you actually disagree then, since you already invited fellow Asshole Theologians™ over to interpret your interpretation , as I knew it would happen (no skill required, always plays out like that). I told you that the text rather seemed to support what I wrote. Here are two key passages (on communication, where you objected, since you allegedly agree with sexual education) side by side:

Clear communication of “no” isn’t primarily going to avoid miscommunication — rather, it’s a meta-message. Clear communication against the undercurrent that “no” is rude and should be softened is a sign of the willingness to fight, to yell, to report.

(Me, 122) This is why learning to “meta”, i.e. leave the game and comment on it (by saying that game has ended) is an important skill.

Ok. WTF? And now, I. R. Baboon, quick! Ask I. M. Weasel to take over. I’m not going to address the non-sequitur parade of the other two Asshole Theologians™ Nick Gotts and Giliell that followed.

Haven’t had a chance to read all comments. Just dropped in to say– I’ve been impressed for some time by Zerlina Maxwell. Always look forward to hearing her ‘sub’ on Sirius Left. Google her to find more.

So, Owlglass, your answer is to pretend that you didn’t try to accuse Mythbri of disagreeing with you about the value of sex education in the first place?

Your initial assertion was that rape is caused in part by unclear communication. You claim the Yes Means Yes link supports your assertion. So either you misstated your initial assertion, or you’re lying, because the overall conclusion of that study, and several others besides which actually survey the attitudes of men who rape, is that no, the problem is not that they don’t understand that they don’t have consent. The problem is either that they don’t care, or, more often, they enjoy the lack of consent.

So which is it?

Oh, and by the way, when you say that “we know how FTBullies operate”–do you have a mouse in your pocket?

Hey, Owlglass
Since I gave you the case where a rapist walked free even though a clear and unequivocal “No” was uttered, where is your point that we need to educate victims to say “no” clearly?
Also:

(putting it mildly, we know how FTBullies operate, if someone with a slightly different perspective isn’t walking away as a misogynist concentration camp guard who wants slavery back, something went wrong

Aren’t you the one who claims that Sally’s “femi-nazi” was the worst thhing ever written on the internet and that such words should never be used? Guess that only counts when others are doing so. But maybe you can tell me how many of your family members were actually killed in concentration camps…

I’m amazed that when whenever rape is mentioned, assholes trip over themselves to suggest ways in which women can prevent being raped while ignoring the problem is that a number of people in positions of power don’t take rape seriously.

These articles one focuses on the feelings/experience of women who travel alone in foreign countries (not canada, but more like south east asia) and they focus at the male gaze and how women perceive it as sexual harassment.
They note that females generally dont visit those countries alone, but rather go with their hubby or friends. The reason is because they are scared of the male violence and male sexual harassment. This is due to the fact that 1) institutions advise women to not visit those countries alone 2) they hear from friends and family to not go alone, 3) they hear stories of other females who were raped 4) naturally ingrained fears of female like afraid of the dark, afraid of getting raped, etc…

Most of these are terribly lacking in statistical rigour and methodological scrutiny(mostly using bullshit interviews), but these are also the studies that are popular in gender studies so it`s expected.

why only rape? Is there a crime where people victim blame nearly as much rape?

That`s a good question. I think females are more into victim-blaming simply because it`s part of their nature. I reckon it also happens when they get violently attacked, that they blame themselves.

However, like you have suggested, there is a fundamental difference on how the environment reacts to a female who was violently attacked or was raped. People would seek generally external causes to the first problem and generally would seek internal causes for the second problem.
I believe this is the case because we all rightfully assume that males have a stronger sexual desire most of the time and we also rightfully assume that it`s hard for them to control their desires generally relative to women. Both men and women know this. So because of this assumptions both men and women use, it`s therefor incredibly stupid for a women to pass out in a ghetto neighborhood with only a g-string on. Nobody would been in shock if such a female specimen would get raped. Not even the girls mother.

Likewise, since men know about other males sexual desires and since such a thing is hard to control (lol @ training them not to rape), the easier thing to control is womens behavior.

Now some people have mentioned that most rapists are not because of strangers. This is correct and im well aware of that. But that isnt really an argument against my thesis is it ?
I`m solely talking about what women can do to reduce her chanes of getting raped in occasions where she can have the control. If her rapists was er father, friend or family, it`s hard to give her advice for that.

So its more easy to reduce rape when the rapist is a stranger than when its a close member. Just because majority of the rapists are people of which she knows, doesnt mean we should not reduce the rape statistics that occur outside such a scenario. So my focus are on the rapist = stranger part.
And yes best advice = not go alone at night, refrain from isolated areas, etc (general behavior that women already en masse apply). But its always good to stress this, since a good deal of females are getting raped due to because of them being drunk and being alone in parties.

Secondly, the rape statistics are a bit inflated when it comes to the situation where rapists are the partner or the spouse. This is because the definition of rape is very wide. I believe I `raped` my girlfriend numerously according to the strict definition of rape. But she`s still happy with me, so I guess that kind of `rape` isn`t as bad as how the word sounds.

we know how FTBullies operate – Owlglass,/blockquote>
Calling out your rape-apologetic bullshit is not bullying, scumbag.

Most of these are terribly lacking in statistical rigour and methodological scrutiny(mostly using bullshit interviews), but these are also the studies that are popular in gender studies so it`s expected. Dennis Strubbe

Even if this were true, tu quoque is the last resort of the fuckwit. I suggest you try it in your next psychology exam and see what response you get.

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person’s consent.

Problem is that the definition implies that the consent is static. I mean, when my gf isn`t in the mood, I still go for it and try go get her in the mood. Strictly speaking, she doesn`t want it but I still go for it. So this is rape ?
If this means that I should stop, than that`s idiotic, since I know she will get in the mood if I keep going.

So yes, according to that definition, I raped her (countlessly). But she`s fine, so it`s all good.

This is why it`s strange to imagine initially that 1/3 females were raped in their lifetime. When you factor in the wide definition and `rapes` by their hubby or boyfriends, i`m actually surprised the real numer is not 3/4 or sth :D

This is almost per definition. You have a sex difference in that females will generally blame themselves when shit happens. This really isn`t only for rape, it happens for numerous other phenomena (females will suffer more from depression is that they internalize their failures where men will externalize for instance). Victim blaming is very prevalent among women. The cause ? Well obviously it has to do with both their female nature and with the environment.

Of your papers listed @ 174 – the first is set in London and is about victim blaming., the second is about how socialisation and inadequate knowledge generate fear and the third is about how gendered stereotypes feed into absolutely everything. None of them supports your thesis.

As for your 176, I have rarely seen such a gallimaufry of offensive attitudes and stereotypes unsupported by a single fact – except that they make you feel more comfortable about being the arsehole you so clearly are. I was thinking of taking it apart word by word but have decided that you are beyond hope.

As a free gift, here’s the definition of rape in English law and though Belgium has had some problems getting its head around sex crimes I don’t imagine it is very different where you are.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the Act) came into force on the 1 May 2004. It repealed almost all of the existing statute law in relation to sexual offences. The purpose of the Act is to strengthen and modernise the law on sexual offences, whilst improving preventative measures and the protection of individuals from sexual offenders.

Under section 1(1) SOA 2003 a defendant, A, is guilty of rape if:

_ A intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of B (the complainant) with his penis;

_ B does not consent to the penetration; and,

_ A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

The new offence of rape in section 1(1) SOA 2003 includes oral and anal penetration with a penis. This is a change from the previous law which was only concerned with vaginal penetration and used other offences to criminalise these forms of sexual violence (such as indecent assault). The person who commits the offence of rape must be a man (as the penetration has to be with a penis). However, both women and men may experience rape. If the penetration is with something other than a penis then the offence is assault by penetration

For the offence of rape to have been committed the defendant must have penetrated you without your consent, or continued to penetrate you after you withdrew your consent, and the defendant must not have reasonably believed that you were consenting.

It is not relevant what relationship, if any, a defendant has or had with you. Nor is it relevant if the act complained of occurred within a relationship. If the defendant intentionally penetrates with his penis the vagina, anus or mouth of the complainant without her consent where he does not reasonably believe in her consent the defendant has committed rape.

Of your papers listed @ 174 – the first is set in London and is about victim blaming., the second is about how socialisation and inadequate knowledge generate fear and the third is about how gendered stereotypes feed into absolutely everything. None of them supports your thesis.

Do you have any idea what my thesis was. I`ll wait for you to answer that. If you cant, ill explain why it does support my thesis. I had those articles in my when I posted my claims, so I really would like to hear your answer first

I said that the definition is very wide and therefor it can be counted as `rape` even tough it`s not really rape.

Wrong
The definition is clear.
Somebody who commits an act that fits the definition is a rapist.
But something rapists happily and often do is to argue that definition is wrong.
It’s not the definition that is problematic, it is you.

Okay, we are all rapists now :/
I think there are numerous definitions. Some only look at vaginal penetration, other to vaginal, oral and anal penetration and still others to oral stimulation, kissing, groping, etc.

I said that the definition is very wide and therefor it can be counted as `rape` even tough it`s not really rape.

The legal definition of rape in the UK is quite clear, and Maureen Brian already gave it. Your pretence that the definition is wide is simply a lie. Your behaviour towards your girlfriend certainly sounds most unpleasant, and may well constitute some form of sexual assault, so you are unwise to boast about it: someone might actually report you to the police, and although a prosecution is most unlikely without your girlfriend’s participation, it would probably not be a pleasant experience for you.

Is that a common tactic here ? Just ban those who don`t ascribe your views ? The world is bigger than your feminist views, you should step outside a little.

Look, scumbag, we know there are plenty of people like you, who justify rape and may well commit it. We don’t want them round here. Fuck off.

“any act of sexual penetration, of whatever sort and by whatever means, committed on a non-consenting person”. The means employed, the sex of the victim and the orifice of penetration are immaterial.

So it’s somewhat (and very reasonably) wider than that in English law, as it includes penetration with any part of the body or with an implement (a separate offence under English law), but it is most certainly not vague or unduly wide.

. I think females are more into victim-blaming simply because it`s part of their nature.

So women get blamed for their rape because that is natural? Nice. Society blames most rape victims for their rape and that is the fault of women.

I believe this is the case because we all rightfully assume that males have a stronger sexual desire most of the time and we also rightfully assume that it`s hard for them to control their desires generally relative to women.

Absolute bullshit. Women are socialized, taught, that they don’t have a sex drive (or if they do have one, it means they are sluts). Men are socialized to be sexually aggressive (multiple partners for a female? a slut; multiple partners for a male? he is The Man!)

Likewise, since men know about other males sexual desires and since such a thing is hard to control (lol @ training them not to rape), the easier thing to control is womens behavior.

The thing is, controlling the behaviour of women does not prevent rape. All of these rape prevention tips that you and other rape apologists keep spouting DO NOT PREVENT RAPE!!!!!!!!! The rapes still happen. They just don’t happen to your personal women. If you control the behaviour of women, you may be ‘protecting’ your women but you are not stopping rapists — men who decide to rape will shift to another target. Meanwhile, you and yours will still be able to rape ‘your’ women with impunity.

Secondly, the rape statistics are a bit inflated when it comes to the situation where rapists are the partner or the spouse.

Citations on that one, please.

I believe I `raped` my girlfriend numerously according to the strict definition of rape.

Do you control her behaviour? Do you make sure that she dresses in certain ways? Did it stop you from deciding that your hard on was more important than her bodily autonomy? Like I said, you may be ‘protecting’ her from stragner rape, but you are not ‘protecting’ her from rape.

But she`s still happy with me, so I guess that kind of `rape` isn`t as bad as how the word sounds.

Hey, asshole. I was raped for about two years. I was nine or ten years old. I stayed in cub scouts. So because I kept going places with my rapist, does that mean it really wasn’t so bad?

You are a perfect example of a rapist, a rape apologist, and a supporter of rape culture. You have decided that you know what is best for women (keep them close so you can rape them). You have decided rape isn’t so bad (so you enjoy being a rapist. does that mean your victim enjoyed it?). You really need to just fucking leave.

Problem is that the definition implies that the consent is static. I mean, when my gf isn`t in the mood, I still go for it and try go get her in the mood. Strictly speaking, she doesn`t want it but I still go for it. So this is rape ?
If this means that I should stop, than that`s idiotic, since I know she will get in the mood if I keep going.

So yes, according to that definition, I raped her (countlessly). But she`s fine, so it`s all good.

Yes, you are a rapist. Multiple times. Yes means yes. Enthusiastic consent, not coerced consent, is the way for the MAN to not be a rapist. It really is your decision.

But you have stated that whether a woman is raped or not depends on what she is wearing, whether she has a chaperone, whether she has been drinking. But you are a rapist. All that matters is what you want and what your girlfriend wants DOES NOT MATTER! You are a rapist.

You have a sex difference in that females will generally blame themselves when shit happens.

I am a man. I was raped as a child. I blame myself. So I blame myself why?

Victim blaming is very prevalent among women. The cause ? Well obviously it has to do with both their female nature and with the environment.

Bullshit. Society has taught all of us, through the existence of rape prevention tips, that, unless it is a stranger in a dark ally and she was a virgin, then it must be the victims fault.

I said that the definition is very wide and therefor it can be counted as `rape` even tough it`s not really rape.

Your victim said no. You coerced her into agreeing. Yes, that is rape.

Lol, strong female logic.

lol. Outright misogyny.

Dennis Strubbe has been banned for bigotry and general sleazy creepiness.

Thank you.

===

Sorry. I read the rapists comments before threading down to the ban.

Anyone out there, any lurkers, anyone reading this thread, take a look at Dennis Strubbe’s writings. There, on your computer screen, is one of the strongest statements I have ever seen to show what rape culture is and how rape apologists operate.

I’m glad someone flushed the turd before I got here. To return to the point of the usefulness of firearms…

I don’t have any statistics, so this is a total arse-pulled assumption: in most cases of rape, I very much doubt the situation becomes threatening enough that the victim might reasonably think to reach for a weapon until the (potential) rapist is well within arm’s reach. Even if she (I know, but the victim is almost always a woman) has a gun to hand, the usefulness of drawing the weapon when the assailant is in grappling distance is questionable at best, especially if the rapist is in a chemical and emotional state that makes him (previous caveat still applies) more likely to think that grappling for the gun is a good idea.

In short, carrying a gun to “prevent” rape is a subset of carrying a gun to “protect” yourself from other crimes: it just makes you more likely to get shot.

Nick Gotts
German definition sees rape as a grave form of sexual assault. It also includes making somebody penetrate another person against their will.
Yeah, but Dennis totally showed us that the definition is arbitrary by his little “breathing” example. I mean, “the definition is wrong because it would mean I’m a rapist and I’m not” is a really convincing argument.

I’m not sure why so many people have to make the trivially obvious point that the actions of a possibly-soon-to-be-rape-victim affect whether that rape happens or not. Duh. Women can live their lives in a paranoid isolation, avoiding all men and only forming relationships with women…and possibly pets. Doing so may not reduce the risk to zero, but it would obviously become a more remote possibility. And yes, people (women AND men) avoid going to places like….Sudan or Egypt or Pakistan because of the violence (including sexual violence) that takes place there. Absolutely, gob-smackingly obvious. However, asking women to take steps to avoid rape is like putting a band-aid on a beheaded body. It might stem a tiny tiny amount of bleeding, but the main problem – death – remains unmitigated. As long as men think their sexual gratification is more important than a women’s autonomy, sexual violence will continue to exist.

We live in a society steeped in a patriarchal history; there are women alive today in democratic, developed nations, that can remember a time when they couldn’t legally vote. Any country that aspires to become more equal and truly meritocratic has to answer for that history and take proactive steps that all address the same goal: ending the cycle of privilege by raising children to respect themselves and all others equally, regardless of their gender, race, nationality, etc. This is the solution to rape. This is the thing teachers, police officers, government bureaucrats, social workers, and everyone else who has any influence on his/her culture (basically everyone who is aware of their own privilege), need to be addressing.

Working towards this goal won’t just make rape far less prevalent; it will result in more men who think that they have no business deciding whether a women carries a pregnancy to term or not. It will result in more companies becoming truly diverse at all levels of bureaucracy, because people in charge will recognize that hiring employees with a variety of backgrounds and experiences is likely to make their company better, that diversity in and of itself, is a huge asset that goes overlooked today. Rape is just one symptom of the privilege disease; we are well and truly fucked unless more people start to see this disease for what it is, and make a conscious choice to fight it.

And I wonder just how many women would be brought up on manslaughter or murder charges for shooting a man who had ‘innocently’ grabbed her arm. Or followed her. Or showed up in her bedroom.

This.
Also, the moment you become aware that somebody is going to rape you is when it’s too fucking late. Even the much cited stranger in the bushes will be just another guy until the moment he gets you. Most men who walk behind me in a car park are actually just drivers who want to get to their cars. One was not. I was lucky to get away. If I’d had a gun and even if I had just pointed it at him, I would have been the criminal, crazy bitch who thinks that all men are rapists, lock her away.
It’s one of their catch 22’s: we’re supposed to simply defend ouselves (because obviously everybody can!) and when we do so we prove that we are not to be taken serious because apparently we hate all men…

Yup. Because ever man is completely and totally innocent in every way, shape or form, until he actually rapes the woman. And even then, he is usually innocent. So shooting the man who grabs you, if you are a woman, means jail time (thanks for the link, Maureen). Shooting the young black man walking through the development mean that he (not she, he!) has Stood His Ground!

170, SallyStrange
Your initial assertion was that rape is caused in part by unclear communication

No. My initial assertion was that sexual education would be a good thing, which includes information on what rape is, what is does, including clear communication to remove emotional coercion (rape does occur in marriages, or between people who know each other) and learning to “meta” a situation. It changes culture and possibly prevents cases that are preventable. It this enough? Probably not. But hey, that was a comment on a blog. You can simply flip it around and see where you actually disagree. You probably don’t. What you did is A) you made a non sequitur towards “putting responsibility on women” an abstract concept which hits various red buttons and B) you straight went into parental mode with the intention of calling out the very concept you (or someone else) added. This is about a power fantasy. I could explain this some more, but that’s not the place of dissecting the behavior of a vocal minority. I’m perfectly fine with the majority of people and the general views of the hosts, otherwise I wouldn’t come here.

Gee, typical hiding place for those who really advocate bad things. Like misogyny, etc. You sound like them, the slymepit. Now, what you need to do is to stop sounding like them, by not saying certain things. In your case, that means you just go away. You are too proud of your limit thinking not to stick your foot in your mouth again.

In his current state? Sadly, nothing, as far as I can see. There are two solutions, which actually ties into the OP rather well:

A- She could be firmer about saying no, thus teaching the arsehole that pushing his luck will not get him anywhere.
B- him to be educated so that he realises he shouldn’t fucking well be doing that anyway.

Option A (the “Conservative option”): unviable solution because 1) no one else understands the pressures she feels in that situation, making it a classic “Easy to say, harder to do” situation and 2) she shouldn’t have some arsehole putting her in that fucking situation anyway.

Option B (the “Liberal Solution”): Entirely viable but long term and thus probably wouldn’t help this woman in her current predicament, but may very well be the route to stopping the next generation turning out like Dennis.

There’s also the sad fact that due to the shittier aspects of our culture she may not see anything wrong with what he’s doing either.

thumper1990
Well, maybe she doesn’t see anything wrong as such, but I could imagine her agreeing just to get him to stop bothering her. You know, not wrong, just minor annoyance to be done with. :/ Which just shows how deeply rape culture goes.
Then again, I really don’t know how she feels about it because I am not her.

Yes I imagine that what goes through her head is something along the lines of “Fine, let’s get this over with”, but I didn’t want to pontificate too much. Like I said, and you said, I don’t know what she thinks. She could be giving in through fear rather than exasperation for all I know.

But assuming the former, IMO more likely, scenario; it does indeed show how deep the culture goes when a guy has had an explicit “No” and thinks it’s OK to ” try go get her in the mood”. I genuinely cannot get over the fact he thinks that’s just fine. Even before I started reading here, when that probably wouldn’t have fit my definition of rape (4 Nos and a Yes still means yes, right? Ugh), it was still very definitely filed under the category of “Not OK”.

I can’t help picturing a fast forward into the middle of the “event,” she stares off into the middle distance with (at best) a bored expression on her face while he does his thing. When he’s done and looks at her again, she carefully changes said expression to something more like “that was great, baby,” letting the relief that it’s over show a teensy bit so she looks convincingly satisfied.

FSM knows I’ve been there.

Fuck, what a repulsive excuse for a person. It’s women as the gatekeepers of sex as a commodity men try to coerce them into giving up, with no concern about their own feelings on the matter, as usual.

Well, maybe she doesn’t see anything wrong as such, but I could imagine her agreeing just to get him to stop bothering her. You know, not wrong, just minor annoyance to be done with. :/ Which just shows how deeply rape culture goes.

^ This. This is exactly what I did when my long-term partner started ra… r-word… started forcing me into painful sex that I told him in no uncertain terms I did NOT want. Even without any of the bullshit tropes that get applied to police women’s sexuality. All the crap women get about dressing provocatively, flaunting one’s body, sending the ‘wrong’ signals, men having Needs they can’t control and that women have to fulfill as their duty… NONE of that applied in my case, and still I endured ‘get it over with’ sex simply because I wanted the whining and screaming to stop and didn’t feel like getting into a full-on fistfight and smashing up my home. At the time, I also thought it was no big deal, but I still got the nightmares and flashbacks and (inexplicably, so I thought at the time) started really avoiding having ANY kind of sex with my rapey partner.

So yeah. Rape is bad, and “not so bad” rape and “not really rape” rape IS STILL RAPE (you banned piece of shit somewhere around comment 170).

Your post raises another point which confuses me about the situation which Dennis causes; how is sex with an unenthusiastic partner fun? It might just be my ego, but I like to know my partner is enjoying herself. Everyone’s been with a partner who isn’t very active or knows someone who has, and in my experience the reponse to this is negative. If Dennis’ girlfriend is simply laying there, does this simply not register with him? How could he not notice? Or does he ignore it, in which case, how is the sex fun? I had a girlfriend when I was about seventeen who did this; I stopped and asked if I was doing something wrong. I cannot understand the mindset that registers your partner is just lying still and thinks “Meh, just keep plugging away”.

/TW

@pteryxx

I went up and re-read his #176 to see what you were talking about (didn’t read the full thing the first time round; I got as far as “Females are more into victim blaming” and gave up in disgust) and now I’m angry all over again. What an arsehole.

I only put that up there as a rhetorical device so I could demonstrate why that position is wrong :( but that’s an aspect of wrong I didn’t think of. You’re probably right too. Oh. That is unexpectedly crushing.

Because (and this is pulling it out of my arse so please correct me where appropriate) some men, the rapists, (a) do not care about anyone but themselves; (b) bending another to his will is as satisfying as the orgasm; (c) do not view women as actual adult human beings (“There are two kinds of people in the world: men and children. Children exist to give men pleasure and if they say no you can take your pleasure anyway,” (approximate quote from my rapist)); have so fully internalized the lie that women have no sex drive (except sluts, that is) that he thinks women incapable of saying yes in any circumstance; (d) whether she says yes, no, maybe, or not that way, she really does want it but is lying because that is what women do. I can remember being badgered by the scout leader until I said yes. I can remember saying no and him telling me that when I’m a man I can say no. I remember him telling me that, when I’m a man, I’ll understand that a man’s needs will be met. I remember him telling me that I didn’t know how good it will be so he would do it anyway. And I remember him telling me that I was lying and really did want it. I have no idea if this comes anywhere close to anyone else’s experiences (and I am so sorry that so many of you have had any of these experiences) so this is just one little uninformed opinion.

Your post raises another point which confuses me about the situation which Dennis causes; how is sex with an unenthusiastic partner fun? It might just be my ego, but I like to know my partner is enjoying herself. Everyone’s been with a partner who isn’t very active or knows someone who has, and in my experience the reponse to this is negative. If Dennis’ girlfriend is simply laying there, does this simply not register with him? How could he not notice? Or does he ignore it, in which case, how is the sex fun? I had a girlfriend when I was about seventeen who did this; I stopped and asked if I was doing something wrong. I cannot understand the mindset that registers your partner is just lying still and thinks “Meh, just keep plugging away”.

“Lie back and think of England” as the old saying goes?

Some dudes really just only seem to care about the rapid in-and-out friction and their own orgasms, I guess? Some women may inadvertently reinforce their misinformed belief that this is all they need to worry about by trying not to offend/embarrass them, faking orgasms, etc. I’ve heard other women brag about their ability to orgasm superfast via solely internal stimulation (that is, no clitoral, um, attention) and how popular that makes them with men (I guess because they don’t have to do anything “extra”?) and that probably doesn’t help either, though of course it’s not these women’s fault that they’re lucky in that respect. But it does encourage a certain type of man who can’t be bothered with anything “extra” to develop the belief that there’s something wrong with women who need/want foreplay (even the name is telling. “Foreplay.” Not Part Of Real Actual Sex, but BEFORE it, amirite?) or any kind of stimulation apart from vaginal penetration. They (anecdotal! But seriously I’ve seen this a lot. I may just be very unlucky) sometimes seem to view anything but vaginally penetrative sex as something to “get over with” so they can have THEIR fun.

I don’t get it either, but it’s happened to me (and women I know) often enough to consider it more common than it should be.

thumper at 226: from what I understand, someone who goes ahead and has sex with an unresponsive partner probably doesn’t care. It’s possible they just think that’s what sex is supposed to look like (and don’t much care) but more likely they just focus on getting themselves off. (— TW — …and some, such as mine, prefer it that way. Once he got rapey he hated for me to show enthusiasm.)

A consensual sex partner is active, engaged, happy, excited, reaching out to grab at you. If you were having sex with somebody who didn’t want to have sex with you, YOU’D KNOW. A “misunderstanding” in consensual sex looks nothing like rape. Drunken consensual sex looks nothing like rape. Nobody who isn’t a rapist is going to mistake consensual sex for rape, because nobody who isn’t a rapist wants to rape. Rape is fundamentally so different from sex, because it involves having sex with somebody who is not engaged, not active, not touching you, not happy, not excited, not liking you, not liking your body. Normal people do not want that. They do not pursue it. They avoid it, if sex starts edging that way. If you were having sex with somebody, and they were unengaged, lying still, not touching you, not moaning, staring at the wall, flinching, or just completely passed out, YOU WOULD NOTICE THESE THINGS. And if you were a rapist, you’d keep going, because that’s the kind of sex encounter you want. Somebody who wants a consensual sex encounter does not keep going when sex becomes nonconsensual, because it’s not sexy. There is no way to “oops” your way into rape unless you like having sex with somebody who hates having sex with you. You can have sex that gets wacky or you bump them in the eye or you pinch them and they are like, “uh, no, I don’t like that,” but throughout all the drunk or regret or accidents that can happen during sex, your partner is still engaged and actively trying to sex you if it’s consensual sex. That’s not rape.

The only problem I see with “You Know What Consent Looks Like” is that it leaves out things like body betrayal (It couldn’t have been rape because she came). It leaves out the grooming and mind-altering of a predator and a child (See? You came to me. You got undressed with a smile. You want it. (Even though the only reason I did that was because it hurt less that way)). Some victims (well, one, at least) convince myself that I was enjoying it, that I wanted it, that this was a good thing, because the other possibility is just too scary to contemplate.

Ogvorbis: all our posts responding to thumper hit at about the same time. “You know what consent looks like” is a comment in reply to the argument ‘but consent is haaard’ so even though it doesn’t go further into what rape can involve, I still think it’s a worthwhile answer to thumper’s initial question about ‘how does he not notice / how is sex fun’.

IMHO, when it comes to explaining how a predator’s actually gaslighting their target into thinking they consented, or forcing them to mimic consenting behavior, that’s another level… and my experience was a lot different from yours and many others in that sense, because I was flat-out bullied into it.* My rapist simply didn’t give a damn how I felt or about making me pretend consent. So there’s not a lot I personally can say about the full weight of rape culture directed at women generally and at any aspect of a person that can be coded as feminine or just insufficiently toxically masculine.

However one point of “You know what consent looks like” still holds: a person who wants consensual sex doesn’t want to commit or experience rape, and a person who rapes does. Whether a given rapist wants their victim(s) drugged, unconscious, frightened, intimidated, trapped, manipulated or tricked, or just pestered until they give in, the rapist wants the end result to be that a rape happens. That includes being forced to penetrate someone else. I wasn’t at fault for having to choose between enduring rape and fighting my partner; Ogvorbis, you weren’t at fault for being gaslighted and groomed. Neither of us should ever have been put into those traps by our respective abusers.

(*and I didn’t report, leave, or even consider it rape until many years later, either. In that regard, not so different after all.)

I still think it’s a worthwhile answer to thumper’s initial question about ‘how does he not notice / how is sex fun’.

Oh, no question, it is definitely a worthwhile answer. I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t. I was just pointing out that it is not universal.

I wasn’t at fault for having to choose between enduring rape and fighting my partner; Ogvorbis, you weren’t at fault for being gaslighted and groomed. Neither of us should ever have been put into those traps by our respective abusers.

TRIGGER WARNING

I know. It is weird how obvious consent is when I apply it to the experiences of others. When it is me, and whether or not I consented (I almost have myself convinced that I didn’t) it starts to get really grey. He forced me to feel pleasure, he forced me to agree, he forced me to volunteer, he forced me to want it. As you say, he groomed me. He made me into a little toy for him to enjoy. One that wouldn’t object no matter what (because objecting made things worse for me or, even worse, for others). Yeah, we were trapped. And what an sneaky trap it is.

Your initial assertion was that rape is caused in part by unclear communication

No. My initial assertion was that sexual education would be a good thing,

Your continued refusal to recognize that this suggestion is 100% controversial is dishonest.

which includes information on what rape is, what is does, including clear communication to remove emotional coercion (rape does occur in marriages, or between people who know each other) and learning to “meta” a situation. It changes culture and possibly prevents cases that are preventable. It this enough? Probably not. But hey, that was a comment on a blog. You can simply flip it around and see where you actually disagree. You probably don’t. What you did is A) you made a non sequitur towards “putting responsibility on women” an abstract concept which hits various red buttons and B) you straight went into parental mode with the intention of calling out the very concept you (or someone else) added. This is about a power fantasy. I could explain this some more, but that’s not the place of dissecting the behavior of a vocal minority. I’m perfectly fine with the majority of people and the general views of the hosts, otherwise I wouldn’t come here.

Your continued refusal to deal with the specific area in which you advanced an argument, namely, that rape is caused by “ambiguities” in communicating or understanding consent on the part of the rapist is dishonest.

All that bullshit in the middle is just you trying to weasel out of having a fact-based, reasonable discussion about what the fuck it is you actually said.

Also, no word on who constitutes the “we” who know how FTBullies operate?

TW
Now, pure speculation, of course, but Dennis the rapist’s GF lives with a man who holds totally wrong and misogynistic ideas about “male and female nature”. There is a good chance that she shares at least some of those ideas. This means she lives in a world where she considers it her responsibility to not be raped. It means she lives in a world where men are actually sexually agressive beasts wo can hardly control themselves. A world in which she should stay away from all men but still needs one for her protection. And in comes Dennis. He offers “protection”. And he demands sex. Remember, in their world guys have that uncontrolable sexdrive, so you basically have the choice between “consenting” to his coercion or to be rape-raped. Because it’s his nature and you can’t change that. And the others are worse, so you better stay with him. Stockholm Syndrome anybody?
Even more TW:
I often had sex with my partner although I totally didn’t want to. And I faked it. I faked it well. I even initiated sex when I totally didn’t want to have any.
Why? Because my mind was (is) fucked up. Because I thought myself to be so totally unlovable and undesirable that, if I didn’t keep him sexually happy, he would leave me.
He never ever forced, coerced or even tried to persuade me, he never had the slightest idea that I wasn’t happy or enjoying myself. I didn’t have orgasms, I didn’t know how to orgasm and it was “just the way things are”. You know, his erection and orgasm defining the start and end of sex. Me? I was just a necessary tool. I don’t blame him. In a way I raped myself. In a lot of aspects in our relationship I behaved like somebody who has an abusive partner even though I didn’t have. To cut a long story short: If Mr. were inclined to be an abusive, entitled rapist, he could have behaved like one and I would not have found fault with him. If he had applied pressure to get more sex, I would have submitted and I would not have used the word “rape”, not even coercion. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only woman whose mind has been fucked with…

Sorry I didn’t reply yesterday, but I was tired and wanted to give a proper reply to such thoughtful and personal comments.

TW

Basically my point is summed up well by pteryxx’s quote “You know what consent looks like”. He knows. He must know that his girlfriend is not enjoying it. So why would you carry on? It’s his girlfriend, it’s someone he’s supposed to care about, so why would he put her through that? Why would you put anyone through that?

Obviously I understand that the perpetrator clearly doesn’t care, but I don’t understand how they can not. And I think that’s my issue, because normally I can. I don’t claim to have any special powers of empathy, anyone can do it if they can be bothered, but I can normally put myself in another’s shoes even if they do things that I don’t condone or am even disgusted by. I can understand someone snapping and hitting someone. I’ve done it. I can understand snapping and hospitalising someone, or even killing them. I can understand murder, or suicide. We’ve all been victimised and shat on; it doesn’t take much to relate other’s experience to your own and extrapolate, to imagine what it must feel like if the abuse was worse. I can put myself in the shoes of the IRA or Islamic Extremists, and understand their motivations even while decrying their methods. I probably don’t get it right a lot of the time, and sometimes I think I’ve got it right when I haven’t, but I can try. And more importantly I can understand the root causes and postulate solutions, in most cases.

With rapists I can’t do that. I literally cannot get it. I do not understand how that can be in any way preferable to consensual sex. I do not understand how they can not care about who they’re with, or even get off on the fact they aren’t enjoying it. Sex is one of the most beautiful things two people can do together, and rape takes that and it destroys it. And I don’t get why you would do that. And I think that’s my issue. I don’t believe in good and evil; I’m a nurture > nature believer, and with all the above examples I can put myself in their shoes and understand what shaped them and what led them to do whatever they did. Even if it’s something totally disgusting, they’re still human. Because I don’t understand it, rape undermines my worldview. And I don’t like that.

Reading here has helped a bit. I’m starting to see the cultural influences which make people like Dennis feel they are entitled to sex, that cause some people to dehumanise women and see them as tools for getting your rocks off. But it’s raised more questions, because I’m not like that, so why is he? What’s different between me and him that makes him think what he’s doing is OK while I hold him in such contempt for doing it? We’re raised in the same or very similar cultures. But I’ve always held what he so casually admitted to doing as completely immoral, so why is he so cavalier about it?

thumper: for what it’s worth, I don’t understand it either. The best I can say is that I find it (marginally) reassuring that, even though we’re all raised in this drunk-slut-asked-for-it culture, only some 6% of us (of men, anyway) turn out to be predatory, repeat rapists.* Far more people believe in rape culture myths than actually go out and take advantage of them: they’re the ones on juries and in schools who think they’re being helpful by telling young women how not to dress. (And a lot of them think street harassment of women, i.e. flirting and catcalling, is harmless. From the mistaken rape-is-rare POV, it kind of is.) Personally I suspect that non-rapey people finding rape so hard to understand helps protect the people who really commit it – the disbelief, “why would anyone do that!” makes it easy to deny that rape is happening.

In my case, since my rapist was also my beloved long-term partner, it was relatively obvious. He wanted to have sex that hurt me, that I didn’t want to have, even though I was completely willing (and trying) to have consensual sex right then and there. The only possible explanation is that he preferred hurting me to having me cooperate. I’ve never understood that, and that’s part of why I assumed for so many years that it must have been some bizarre mistake. But that’s why I give my example, in certain of these conversations: my rape had absolutely NOTHING to do with clothing, mixed signals, ‘risky’ behavior, male needs or any such BS. I’m the one with the higher sex drive, who generally initiated sex with my own partner in my own bed, and I still got raped.

—-

Aaand as I read back over this, it’s obvious what I’m avoiding saying. Rape isn’t primarily a way to have sex; it’s a way to exert power, using sex as the means. The power trip over another person is more important to them than having beautiful consensual sex between partners. And that’s incredibly fuckin’ sad.

I think a big part of the problem is peoples’ definition of rape. As I said above, before I started reading Pharyngula I wouldn’t have classified what Dennis is doing as rape. I’d have classed it as immoral, and I’d have looked down on people for doing it, but I’d have been of the opinion “She said yes, so it’s not rape”. I was under the impression that rape is against their explicit wishes, and I think most people are. My thought process would have been “It’s wrong, and I would never do it, but it’s not really rape, is it?”. Teaching people that that is rape will be a big step forward I think. You never meet anyone who thinks rape is OK, but you’ll meet plenty of people who define rape as sex against the victim’s explicit wishes. Hence me being a supporter of the series of adverts here in the UK, one of which another poster linked to above, which show situations that most people, when it is desscribed to them using only words, would see as a sort of grey area and portray them in a graphic manner with the explicit message that it is rape, or it is abuse. That’s the sort of measures people should be taking.

I’d have classed it as immoral, and I’d have looked down on people for doing it, but I’d have been of the opinion “She said yes, so it’s not rape”.

thumper, as long as we’re discussing this… what would you have said to a woman who came and told you this, instead of the douchebag above saying it? Would you have said something like ‘YOU said yes, so it’s not rape’ ?

Not trying to ‘gotcha’ you, I really want to know. (I should talk, I didn’t even call my own case rape until much later.)

No, I wouldn’t have been that accusatory… I’d probably have asked why they said yes if they didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately I never met anyone involved in a situation like that so I never got the chance to be that much of a douche to anyone. But judging from my reaction to stories I’ve heard about situations like that, my thinking would have been along those lines, yeah. Basically I would have presumed that the victim had a choice without considering all the pressures they may have been under. I’ve always believed that a woman has every right to say “No” to a sexual situation they weren’t comfortable with, so it never would have crossed my mind that them simply saying “No” wasn’t an option, or that it wasn’t an option that ever would have crossed their minds.

And I say I never got the chance to be that much of a douche to anyone in real life; I’m aware I said something very similar to you once. That was simply poor, thoughtless phrasing rather than a product of the thought process I mention above (I was past that by that point) but the effect was much the same. Sorry again about that :-/

In October of 2007, while walking to her car after a night class, Collins was grabbed from behind in a university parking garage less than 300 yards from a campus police office. The school’s “gun-free” designation meant nothing to James Biela, a serial rapist with a gun of his own, who saw Collins as an easy target. “He put a firearm to my temple,” she recounted, “clocked off the safety, and told me not to say anything, before he raped me.”

uh huh sounds like had she tried to use that gun she’d likely also be dead.

“The culture that enables rape to persist” is the culture that doesn’t trust a woman with a gun to defend herself

Uh huh. And how would that have helped any of the survivors who have told their stories here? How would carrying a gun have helped a child raped by a family member? Or a woman raped by her boyfriend? Or a boy raped by a scout leader? Please be specific with your answers. These are not rhetorical questions.

“The culture that enables rape to persist” is the culture that doesn’t trust a woman with a gun to defend herself, as rape survivor Amanda Collins will tell you.

You seem to think that rape is where a man jumps out on a women from behind a bush and holds a knife to her throat. Well some rape is like that, but very little. Most rapes are committed by someone the women knows, and quite often (up to that point) trusts. So not really the type of situation a gun is going to be much use.

I don’t know if this necessarily makes it less depressing, but I think this has more to do with internalized rape culture than privilege. Even people who have been raped will have the point of view you shared. It took me months before I could fully recognize that I had been raped by a friend. I never said the magic word “no” that I could remember, after all. The fact that I was drugged into semi-consciousness and kept blacking out didn’t matter, because it didn’t fit the proper “no means no” narrative I’d accepted.

The important thing is that you know better now. We can’t change our past selves, but we can work on the present and future.

I may as well have entered some holy-roller congregation with my copy of Frans de Waal’s Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Harvard University Press, 1996), and observe the other tribe of hairless great apes throw insults and howl madly.

Anyway, thanks for the lesson, and maybe try some real science on the issue, instead of tired dogma, such as More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago, 2010 (3rd ed.))

Anyway, thanks for the lesson, and maybe try some real science on the issue, instead of tired dogma,

Your sarcasm is that of a pitiful fool who doesn’t understand evidence. Anecdote is not evidence. Evidence is well documented studies of large number of cases. And those cases show the inability of gun to change the outcome when evaluated realistically. One day you may show intellectual honesty and integrity. That won’t happen until you stop with the political slogans and presuppositions of various groups who can’t truly demonstrate they are right.

And how would carrying a weapon have helped any of the survivors who have told their stories here? How would carrying a gun have helped a child raped by a family member? Or a woman raped by her boyfriend? Or a boy raped by a scout leader? Please be specific with your answers. These are not rhetorical questions.

And how would carrying a weapon have helped any of the survivors who have told their stories here? How would carrying a gun have helped a child raped by a family member? Or a woman raped by her boyfriend? Or a boy raped by a scout leader? Please be specific with your answers. These are not rhetorical questions.

Ogvorbis, our nation’s population does not consist of all helpless children, as you might imagine. And one should remember, in any specific situation, “anecdote is not evidence,” if that holds true universally.

Perhaps you can address why non-RTC (right to carry) states in the US have a violent crime rate of ≈500/100,000 when RTC states have a violent crime rate of ≈370/100,000. [Source FBI Uniform Crime Reports]

Guns are obviously no panacea, but being pro-choice is proven to cut violent crime. Would you like to see crime drop? Yes or no; please be specific with your answer! (Did you get that debate tactic from the hyperventilating Creationists?)

Tell you what. Answer my questions. Please. Tell me how a three-year-old carrying a gun will prevent rape by a family member. Tell me how a woman carrying a gun will prevent her boyfriend raping her. Tell me how I, as a nine- or ten-year-old boy, could have used a gun to stop my cub scout leader raping me. You keep writing about this as a hypothetical exercise. Bring it to the personal level. If I had had a gun, would that have done me any good at all?

Perhaps you can explain why the UK which has very strict gun control laws, and does not allow private ownership has a murder rate that is a fraction of the US. In 2011 England and Wales saw 39 people murdered using a gun. Were the rate to be that in the US there would have been over 1700 murders. In fact, that is well over double the number of murders in England and Wales for the period.

I have already asked you to explain your ignorance over the nature of rape, and you have been unable to respond (the assumption is that you cannot explain your ignorance and are too rude to admit as much). Do you want to explain your ignorance this time, or shall we all agree again that is because you are not honest ?

Finally, in an entirely unsurprising finding, rapists who admitted assaulting strangers – ever – were less than a quarter of the rapist population. More than 90% targeted acquaintances some of the time, and about 75% said they only targeted acquaintances. Only 7% of all the self-reported rapists reported targeting only strangers. And, in fact, there was zero overlap between the men who said they targeted strangers, and those who used only force.

These aren’t just anecdotes. This is very valuable data regarding who rapists are and how they operate. Read that and understand how rape actually occurs. Explain how guns would help against the 75% of rapists who only target acquaintances. Explain how guns would help against the 7% of rapists who target only strangers and don’t rely exclusively on physical force. Explain how a victim shooting a non-physically-violent stranger would end in anything other than a murder charge.

2. I am lightning fast and pull my gun out of my bag, it’s loaded and the safety off, so I shoot instantly. Oops! It was a friend of mine just trying to surprise me. Or a frat guy in a funny mask playing a stupid (definitely stupid, mind-numbingly stupid, but deserving of death?) prank. Or maybe he WAS going to rob me, rape me, whatever, but I don’t know that. Now he’s dead. And I am in big trouble. Or he’s wounded, and I’m still in trouble.

2b. I am lightning fast and pull my gun out of my bag, but I had the safety on, and guy grabs me before I can do anything, disarms me, and now he’s got my gun in addition to whatever else he might have had.

2c. I am lightning fast and pull my gun out of my bag, guy sees it and runs off before grabbing me?

5. I am normal human with normal human speed but I do have enough time to reach for my bag, but the guy already has a gun aimed at me before I can get to mine, because he knew I was there and I didn’t know he was.

6. I actually take my gun out of my bag before anything happens and am carrying it in my hand READY FOR ANYONE WHO MIGHT ATTACK ME and someone/many someones see a lady walking around with a gun in her hand and report me, because holy shit who walks around with a gun. There I am in trouble again.

And so on. Which of these am I supposed to believe is most likely? In which cases do I magically manage to get to my gun before the guy gets to me, and how do I balance being fast enough to make a difference, but slow enough to make sure my reactions are warranted?

American women are killed by intimate partners (husbands, lovers, ex-husbands, or ex-lovers) more often than by any other type of perpetrator.2–4 Intimate partner homicide accounts for approximately 40% to 50% of US femicides but a relatively small proportion of male homicides (5.9%).1,5–10 The percentage of intimate partner homicides involving male victims decreased between 1976 and 1996, whereas the percentage of female victims increased, from 54% to 72%.4

Our iterative model-building strategy also allowed us to observe whether the effects of more proximate risk factors mediate the effects of more distal factors in a manner consistent with theory. For example, the 8-fold increase in intimate partner femicide risk associated with abusers’ access to firearms attenuated to a 5-fold increase when characteristics of the abuse were considered, including previous threats with a weapon on the part of the abuser. This suggests that abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse.

However, consistent with other research,3,23,15,24,25 gun availability still had substantial independent effects that increased homicide risks. As expected, these effects were due to gun-owning abusers’ much greater likelihood of using a gun in the worst incident of abuse, in some cases, the actual femicide. The substantial increase in lethality associated with using a firearm was consistent with the findings of other research assessing weapon lethality. A victim’s access to a gun could plausibly reduce her risk of being killed, at least if she does not live with the abuser. A small percentage (5%) of both case and control women lived apart from the abuser and owned a gun, however, and there was no clear evidence of protective effects.